Winter's Rose
by Niana Kuonji
Summary: Aislin Moors is an ice maiden of considerable power and short temper: like our favorite fire apparition with the gravity defying hair. Read about her :mis:adventures and her interactions with our gang of Spirit Detectives. :coarse language, some OOC:
1. Default Chapter

Hi ya'll, and welcome to my latest fanfic. This one is actually completed, and I'll be posting chapters as soon as I work out how they flow--and hopefully before I have my computer shut down for moving. Stupid lack of floor space. [sigh] But now, for your enjoyment, the first chapter of 'Winter's Rose'.

Chapter one.

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"I am Darkness, I am Death, I steal your heat, I steal your breath. Toy with me, lose the way, forever lost you stay."

This is the first entry of my first journal, dated June nineteenth, year two-thousand four. My name is Aislin Moors, and I am a woman you should not toy with. To begin, I am approximately five feet in height. I am also part demon, and well over three hundred years old. I am the element of ice, with a healthy dose of mortal--I suppose the common term is human now--and a wide spectrum of traces from many other demons/spirits. It has made the discovery of my abilities and powers a path filled with pit-traps and snares, but it is well worth it. Some of the faces my enemies have made as they died have been rather amusing, actually.

I have chosen to make this journal into a record of memories of both past and present.

This is the most information I will ever willingly give, and that is if I am pressed. If I am not, you are lucky to get my name. If you are an enemy, you find out one other thing: why my other name is Whiteout.

You may laugh, thinking that it means the human invention of liquid paper, the 'white-out' that allows you to correct mistakes. No. I was named thus long before paper became common in the human world. I am the blizzard that wipes out your sight, and leaves your frozen and dead inches away from your door. The sentence I open this journal with is something like my motto, though rarely uttered, it describes me almost perfectly. Because I am human, I still have a warm core of emotion, though I have locked it in ice for many, many a year. And yet--

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The petite white-haired woman looks up from the thick pad of paper on the ebony desk and gives the door an icy stare. "The door is unlocked. Come in or go away, it is your choice. Just make it quickly." The door opens, seemingly by itself until she looks down. One snowy, thin eyebrow lifts ever so slightly upwards. "Koenma-san. I am surprised you did not choose to come in your more-mature form. Actually, I'm surprised you came at all."

"Yes, well," grumbles the child-like ruler in mild irritation. "There was a reason I came to see you." The woman sighs, picking up the stack of parchment she'd been writing in and tapping it against the desk to neaten it before laying it flat, leaning back in her over-stuffed chair and tucking her hands inside the arm-slits of her house-cloak. On the far corner of her desk lies a folded piece of honey-brown leather--the journal's soon-to-be cover.

"Koenma-san, what reason would be so great that you would come visit my lair without an incredible amount of prodding? Is it time to vet another Detective? After all, you sent the last three after me to capture or kill, and all but one returned with virtually nothing to show for their efforts but hypothermia and exposure. Poor choice of employees, Koenma-san," she adds in a mockingly-mournful tone, shaking her head slowly.

Koenma flushes at the barbed scorn buried in the insult and retorts heatedly, "If I wanted your opinion on my choice of Detectives I would have asked for it, Aislin!"

The eyebrow, which had gone back down, rises in the tiniest sign of exasperation. "Then why _are _you here?"

He deflates, and looks rather embarrassed. "What do you think of my latest Detective?"

"That's what I thought," Aislin says quietly, without inflection, stretching one hand and tapping on the nearest corner of her desk. "Filing system, please bring up the file on Spirit Detective Yusuke Urameshi." There is a soft click and a whir, a thoughtful hum, and an electric blue folder suddenly appears by her waiting hand. "Thank you."

Koenma stares at the folder in her hands while she opens it and flips through the pages with an air of unruffled concentration. The stack it holds is several inches thick, all of it the same electric blue as the folder. Aislin catches him staring and acknowledges the silent question. "I prefer going by several coordinating filing systems. The folder and its contents are color-coded to match the color of his energy. I've been keeping a close eye on this one."

A few more moments pass in silence broken only by the sounds of pages turning and the small cottage settling on its foundation. Finally the ice-apparition pulls out a page and sets the folder in her lap, eyes scanning over her choice. "Yusuke Urameshi, human, age approximately fifteen years old. Mother, Atsuko Urameshi, father, unknown. Poor attendance in school, attitude is cocky, brash, and stubborn. Does not excel at planning ahead or thinking things through, yet has extraordinary luck in pulling his ass out of the fire. Has been dead once already--" one pale eyebrow lifts slightly and she looks over at Koenma, "--which seems to be one of your requirements for application, yes?"

"Keep going," Koenma sighs.

"Indulges in bad habits such as smoking, drinking, gambling, and excessive fighting." A small sigh escapes her as she sits back and gives Koenma a studied look. "Poor choice, Koenma." The ruler deflates even further, then is stunned with her next words and the tiny smile that pulls at her lips. "I think he'll do just fine, so long as you don't send him against the Sleeping Ones." Her eyes move back to the paper in her hand, flick back to Koenma. "He shows outstanding loyalty to those few people he cares about and has a remarkably quick mind when it comes to battle tactics. He also has an enormous amount of potential without the warning signs of obsessive behavior _and_ he has a healthy honor code. You've caught the best of the litter, Koenma." A slight incline of her head. "Congratulations."

Koenma looks up at her hopefully. "So then--?"

A sigh escapes her pale pink lips, sounding suspiciously like amusement. "Oh, very well. You have my permission to try him against me. But only once, and if I defeat him--which is entirely likely--you will not continue to use me as a measuring stick of future Spirit Detective abilities. Only a source of opinion. Are we agreed?" Koenma steps forward and offers her his chubby hand. With the greatest of solemnity, she reaches down and clasps it just above the wrist.

"Agreed."

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--some strange, silly people like Koenma and his assistant, Botan (how someone that perky became the Pilot of the River Styx and the Goddess of Death is beyond me) persist in edging their way past my defenses and into the select group that I call friends. Sometimes it is all I can do to not try and turn either of them into a block of ice. Powerful I may be, but the child-king's father, King Enma, would probably take offense and he has many more tricks and some power more than I. I do not choose to have my death at his hands. Most likely he'd choose my native element, and since I have very little body fat and feel 'cold' quite sharply, it would be very uncomfortable. When I do battle, I make sure to dress appropriately.

I suppose a physical description of my coloration would be in order, and then you will know me when you see me and will know to leave me the hell alone. These days I wear my hair cut short, about shoulder length, and leave it its natural color of ice-white with the two streaks of wine red at the part of my hair. My eyes are slanted, the irises a pale turquoise blue. My demonic markings are very simple, as is often the case with the more powerful demons and apparitions, consisting of a single peacock blue teardrop where a Jagan Eye would normally be planted. Easily covered with a bit of human makeup.

I am also a retired thief. The Games most demons play have become boring and pointless, so I have taken myself off to a life more suited to a hermit, and am well content to meditate and train my days away among quiet trees and unobtrusive bird song. Koenma comes to pester me now and then with this new employee or that, but all of them since I have gained the strength I have, have been disappointment. The last one--a Spirit Detective--was somewhat interesting, but entirely too focused upon his task, borderlining on the obsessive even. I warned the boy-king about that, but he either did not listen or did not care. The more fool he.

I suppose I've confused you. It's something I seem to have a gift for, so I shall start at the beginning and make this into a kind of tale. Perhaps that will help, and let me remember more clearly. 'All the world's a stage' and all of that rubbish.

This performance called my life began so long ago I can't even remember how old I really am. I was born to an Ice Maiden named Shimohana, or Frostflower, on the floating island my mother's people call home; immediately branded a bastard child because my mother had conceived me with a man. Such a practice is taboo to the asexual koorime, and even worse: I was a mixed blood and the only child of that union. Because of that, I was also branded a freak, since a koorime who lies with a man is supposed to bear two children: a girl of ice, and a boy of whatever race the father is. I _still_ don't know how my mother pulled it off, but she did, and never once felt any regret for my existence. I know, because Empathy was an ability that rose early.

I grew up hearing stories about another child who was, at least in part, like me and mere months older. His name was Hiei, and his sister still lived on the island. Of course, no one was allowed to tell her about him, so I kept my mouth shut despite my better judgement. Hiei had gotten thrown from the island a day after he was born, with nothing but swaddling clothes and his birthright tear-gem necklace to his name, to live or die as fate saw fit. He was labeled the Forbidden Child, and I wasn't supposed to hear half of what I did.

And so I grew older, and wilder, and more dangerous to the tradition-loving koorime every day. When I was seven, the others of the tribe had had enough of me, and exiled me as well. I wish I knew if my mother was still alive; I'd like to thank her again for trying to stop them, and to show her just how much I've grown. Hn. She taught me another cliché; 'If wishes were fishes we'd walk on the sea'.

I spent another year wandering, teaching others not to mess with the little koorime-bastard child, and learning how to survive in my new environment. That's when I first met Hiei. Oh, I didn't know it then, of course, it was long after we parted that I figured out who he was. We didn't like each other much, when we first met.

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"Come on, little bunny, just hop into the snare…come on…come on…" A tiny wisp of a girl crouches under a bush, waiting for the plump bunny to take the bait and become tonight's dinner. The little furball's pink nose wriggles, sniffing at the carrot she'd placed to lure it, and it hops a little closer. Just as it stretches to nibble the stringy root, branches snap and it bolts away, the girl rising to her feet and snarling every curse she knows as she retrieves the carrot and looks around in defiance. "All right, I know you're there, and thanks bunches for scaring off my dinner, you prick! Come out so I can give you a good dose of frostbite!"

"Hn. Like you could." A boy about her height steps from the bushes, looking at her with arrogant wine-colored eyes and rubbing the hilt of a sword with his thumb.

"You just watch me, porcupine head!" the girl snaps, lifting her hand up in preparation of chucking a conjured snowball directly into his face. Before she can blink the sword is pointed at her throat, the boy watching her with cool anger.

"I am not a porcupine head, snowflake. Take it back."

"Take back the sword or I'm gonna break it."

"Hn," he repeats, "like you could." His eyes widen as she reaches out and grabs the blade, heedless of the edge biting into her palm. The metal fogs over and he drops it with a muffled curse, only to have the girl grab the hilt with her other hand and snap it over her knee with zero effort. When she tosses the pieces back he finds that the metal is pitted and rusted, and still icy cold.

"Ice makes metal weak, stupid. Just like you."

"I am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Not!"

"Are!"

"Not!"

"Are!" The two stand inches apart, both of them with hair puffed up like two fighting cats', glaring at each other with unchildish anger. The standoff is broken when a male voice calls faintly through the trees: "Hiei! Time to go! Boss is callin' ya!"

"Hiei?" the girl asks in surprise, turning back to find the boy gone. But where he stood is the rabbit, lying there with a neatly broken neck.

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_I spent decades like that, living hand to mouth and doing jobs that didn't disgust me. I guess I was too mule-headed to let the corruption of the Demon World mar my childish honor. And I was a child, I suppose, believing that somewhere, somewhen, there would be someone waiting for me with open arms and no hidden agenda. But before I met him, I found Hiei again._

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"I can smell you, you know. You stink of campfire and blood." Out of the darkness beneath the trees a thin, short figure materializes dressed in black and white with a headband wrapping his forehead above feral, mulberry eyes. The white-haired apparition looks up at him, her barely-starved body clad only in a sleeveless short kimono, a blade of ice already sitting in her hands.

"I took a bath this morning," is the affronted reply, and the corner of her mouth twitches upwards.

"Then you need to use a different soap, kajihenge." She rubs a long scar running along the palm of her hand in deep thought. "You're that boy I met, aren't you? The one who caught my rabbit for me."

"Hn." He looks away, seemingly indifferent. "You'd never have caught it with _that _stupid snare. And I know what it's like to go hungry." He focuses a measuring gaze on her, frowning as the snowflakes fall past them. "Aren't you cold? It's gotta be somewhere around twenty degrees out here."

"Nope! I'm a third koorime. This is a little warm for me, tell you the truth. If I wasn't a whole bunch of everything else, I'd probably be roasting right now." Deciding to let the smile fighting to be free spread across her face, she reaches into her campfire and pulls out a slightly-charred shish-kebob and offers it to him. "So, you're Hiei the Forbidden Child, huh? I always wondered if I'd get to meet you--you're all the elders talked about when they wanted us little girls to behave."

Reluctantly he takes the meat and settles beside her fire on a piece of log, looking at her in mild surprise. "And did you?"

She snorts as she drops another log onto the flames. "Are you kidding me? I went right on terrorizing the other girls anyway. Getting thrown off the island didn't scare me, but turning into a weak, weepy little bubble-head like they wanted me to be did. I _like_ who I am, I don't want to be something or someone I'm not."

"That's a dangerous attitude in this world."

"Screw the world. They don't like me, fine, they can just stay outta my way." And she pulls another kebob from the flames and bites into a piece of singed root. Hiei stares at her in disbelief for a breath or two, then throws his head back and starts laughing in honest mirth.

"I've never met someone like you," he comments, taking a bite out of his cooling food and looking her over more thoroughly. "You're interesting. I don't have an urge to kill you, anyway."

"Hn. As if you could." The two stare at each other over the flames, then the corners of Aislin's mouth twitch and they both start chuckling, then laughing outright. When the laughter dies away, Aislin stands and starts stamping out the flames and burying it under snow. "I'm going thieving tonight. Want to join me?" she asks, holding out her hand. Looking from it to her, a slow smile spreads across Hiei's face as though he'd forgotten how to smile, and he reaches for it, clasping it firmly and getting pulled to his feet.

"Love to."

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_That was when our career as Aisu and Kasai began, the elemental thieves famous for stealing whatever they felt like, only to sell it or give away when bored of their prizes. That was the most fun I'd ever had; for once I didn't have to be afraid of someone punishing me for something I did, because no one could catch me. More importantly, I had a friend with an honor code like mine, and a sense of loyalty all too rare in any of the three worlds. I didn't have to worry about him sneaking around in the middle of the night to stab me in the back while I slept. No, I only had to worry about him sneaking around in the middle of the night on a heist he forgot to tell me about._

But, like everything, people--demons, apparitions and humans alike--change with the passing of the centuries. And so did we. We were still friends, still called each other 'mirror' because of our similarities, but we stopped spending so much time together. I guess it's our mixed blood; crossbreeds either yearn for large groups or for solitude, and Hiei and I were of the second camp.

We started drifting slowly at first, a heist there, a killing there, not telling each other what we'd been doing. Then when we found out, we started splitting up on purpose, making plans and contacts that didn't involve the other in any way. We'd never wanted each other for lovers, and now, it seemed, we didn't much want each other as friends either. Allies, it seemed, would be the best and only thing we could have. But in a world that was filled with beings that would kill you as soon as look at you, I was willing to settle for having Hiei as my ally.

One of the last times I saw him before the mess with Urameshi was approximately four hundred years ago, when we finally went our separate ways. I kept tabs on him, and I'm sure he did the same for me, but we didn't try to contact each other that much. And while nearly a century and a half later, wandering, I met him_._

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"What's a pretty little thing like you doing in a place like this?" A smooth voice asks from above, and the petite ice-apparition busy picking a complicated lock merely glances upwards to find a silver-haired fox apparition sitting on a branch, watching her with avid amber eyes.

"I'm working," she replies brusquely. "Go away."

He shakes his head in mock disappointment. "Sorry, pretty lady, but I can't do that. See, I'm after something here, too, and if you're after the same thing I'm just gonna have to kill you for it."

That does it. Carefully setting her tools down, she unbends from her crouch and glares upwards at her antagonist with icy blue-green eyes. "Hn. As if you could. And I dare you to try."

"Might I inquire as to your name first?"

"Fine." That impish grin he wears gets a little bigger.

"All right, then. What's your name, my little ice sculpture?"

"You can call me Aisuhana. You don't get my name, and I'm not your anything. Now let me work or neither of us gets anything." He gestures politely for her to continue, and she bends back down and resumes picking the lock. He waits in polite silence while she works, but the second the lock clicks open, he speaks up again.

"Well, Aisuhana, what exactly are you after in this place tonight?" _He _must_ be a thief_, she thinks to herself sourly, _since he knows I'm probably gonna be back here eventually_.

"If you absolutely must know, you nosy fox, I am after a small gem known as the Tear of the Rose. I've been tracking it for three decades until it came here."

"Why is that?" he asks, ambling behind her as she slips into the vault.

"'Cause it's _mine_ and I want it back without having to fucking pay for it through the nose." Surprised, he falls silent and she is grateful for that small mercy as she navigates the complex networking of traps and alarms, the silver fox passing through them as though they simply aren't there_. Gods be damned, this pest must be that Silver Thief 'Yoko' I've been hearing about_, the koorime thinks to herself in extreme aggravation. _If he tries to take my prize he's gonna be known as the _Beaten Thief_, so help me!_

She breathes a tiny sigh of relief when she reaches the desired storage room holding her target, and she slips a fingerless glove off her hand and presses it against the door. Sending her energy out, she slowly--and oh, so carefully!--freezes every motion sensor, heat detector, and every other object resembling a trap, camera or alarm in the door and the entire room beyond it into total dysfunction. Slipping her glove back on the takes out a chisel and taps it around the simple locked knob, catching it when it falls and the door swings open. Her 'tail' is looking at her with new respect as she creeps into the room and searches for the jewel she's after.

There. In a glass display case practically covered in alarm sensors is a round jewel the size of her thumbnail and the color of blood-wine, set into a simple gold frame and hung on a thick chain of the same metal. Walking confidently but cautiously up to the case, she lifts one gloved hand up and wriggles her bare fingers. Her thumb- and pinky-nails now taper into sharp points, the tip of her middle finger suddenly coated in a sap-like substance that glints under the single light.

She carefully etches a circle into the glass, sets her middle finger to the glass and presses firmly, then strikes the glass _next_ to the circle with the heel of her other hand. The circle breaks free without a single sound and she gingerly sets it down on top of the case. The sudden intake of her 'tail's breath makes her whirl and clap a hand over his mouth in warning, glacier eyes practically daring him to speak just so she'd have an excuse to kill him. He gulps silently and nods; only then does she release him and let her feet return to the floor instead of her levitating at his height. She never wastes rei if she can help it.

Reaching in, she gently gathers up the jewel and its chain, stuffing it into the pouch secured to her hip and looking around for anything else worth stealing. Finding nothing she particularly feels like taking, she raises one eyebrow at her unwanted companion and gestures at the rows of displays lining the walls and piles of valuables stacked on the floor in invitation.

He simply smiles, shakes his head, and holds up his desired prize: a heavy gold chest-collar nearly covered in precious jewels, intricate enamel, and finely detailed filigree. Shrugging to indicate indifference, Aislin simply takes her glove off again and presses it to the floor for one last detail. Spreading out from her hand is a stylized snowflake in frost, with a word written clearly on each leaf. _'Compliments of the Whiteout. Have a nice day.'_ Below it more calligraphic words form by themselves in the white crystals: _'Just taking what's mine. This heist has been brought to you with the accompaniment of the Silver Thief. Thank you for your participation.' _Looking as though he would pop from trying to hold his laughter in, the silver fox claps both hands over his mouth and leaves the room at what could be called a dignified trot while Aislin uses her practiced skills to erase any evidence besides the damaged case and doorknob, the frozen calling-card, and the missing items.

The frozen burglar-foiling devices would be thawed in a few minutes, and after someone discovered her calling card, it would disappear as well, leaving no print or rei-signature for the authorities to follow. Satisfied with her work, the silent apparition slips out and makes a bee-line for the exit. She glides out of her original entrance with no noise and nearly invisible in the darkness, and then she turns, shuts the door, and relocks the padlock. With any kind of luck, even the bad, the 'good-guys' would never know where she came in.

Only after she has thoroughly checked over her work does the petite female take off at a blurred sprint through the forest, zigzagging, backtracking on her own trail, and crossing every stone and water-hazard she could find in order to muddle her path and confuse any followers. Only when she considers herself 'safe' does she takes her prize out to reassure herself of its reality.

"You're quite--eep!" At the first word Aislin had thrown a conjured ice-shuriken at the voice's source, aim only slightly off from the sudden leap of adrenaline pouring into her system. Panting from fright and effort, she looks off to her left to find the silver fox from before staring at the weapon imbedded into the wood just beside his head, his long hair practically standing on end from fright.

"Oh. It's just you." Unconcerned now, she simply places the jewel and its chain back into the pouch and starts walking off indifferently.

"'Just me' indeed! You could have killed me with that!"

"Hn. You should be thankful my aim was off. Your death was the general idea."

"What?" He stares at the slender grey-clad female in shock. She stops, turns to him and speaks as though he is a very small child.

"I. Missed." And then she takes off again, leaving (hopefully) the fox to stare after her with growing intrigue on his handsome features.

===

After changing into regular clothes she'd stashed in one of her many cache trees and taking the time to strip the gold from the gem, she bundles her thief-gear into an unrecognizable package and takes off for the third time, her destination a town known for being a haven to thieves. She is known there, and left alone.

Arriving at the outskirts without so much as mildly exerting herself, just as the sun is rising, she leisurely saunters into her neighborhood, face neutral and body language set to maximize that neutrality. No use advertising her take for the whole town to see. But as she passes a beggar sitting next to an alleyway, one she knows is a real beggar and a fighter on hard times, she sleight-of-hands the chain and setting into his bowl. A quiet smile is all that she allows in acknowledgment of the beggar's single murmur of 'thanks' before he gets up and heads straight for the jeweler's shop. Aislin knows he'll get a good deal for the gold, or he'd break every bone in the jeweler's reptilian body. She frowns as that triggers a thought. She really must remember to find a time and place where she can train without interruption. Some of her fighting skills that she learned alongside that needle-haired kajihenge are getting rusty.

Once inside her small, Spartan apartment with every alarm and trap of her own unsprung she allows herself to relax with a whoosh of outward breath and a sudden flooding of the space with her aura. The temperature drops several degrees and she gladly sheds her outer layers down to a tanktop and shorts, walking barefoot on the thick carpet towards her tiny icebox. As she'd grown older she'd found that she needed less and less to sustain energy, only for replacing what she used. Like tonight, or rather this morning.

She selects a few early fruits and a pre-made roast-beef sandwich (or equivalent thereof) and settles into her armchair, dangling her legs over one arm and picking up a book on the end-table beside it. Flipping it open to her bookmark, she wriggles to get more comfortable, bites into her sandwich, and starts reading.

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	2. Chapter Two

Wow, I got my first review for this one faster than my Ranma/YYH fanfic. O.o Cool! :D Please remember, this story does use some very crude language and will have the occasional scene of brief non-sexual nudity. Not that I bother to describe anything besides 'walking without clothes'. Use your own imaginations. ;P

Chapter Two.

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"Do you _have_ to keep doing that, you thrice-bedamned cocky little fox?" Aisling hisses angrily from somewhere near the ceiling of the small room. Yoko still stands where he was when he snuck up on her to lean over her shoulder and whisper 'boo' in her ear. He grins up at her now in open merriment at the sight of her short hair practically standing on end, the fur trim of her outfit puffed out in shock, cat-like claws sunk into the rock of the ceiling, and her turquoise eyes glaring at him with something akin to hatred.

She carefully dislodges her grip and pushes at the rock, sealing her fingerholds as though the rock of the ceiling is nothing more than wet clay, before dropping light as thistledown back to the floor, baring her small fangs at him and resuming the work of cracking the combination lock on the safe.

"It's so much fun watching you jump," he whispers back amusedly. She just starts muttering a long list of uncomplimentary things and names at him while she listens with one softly-pointed ear to the gears behind the combo's lock, describing his mating habits and the circumstances of his conception and birth with intricate detail. With every name and insult his smile just gets broader and broader, until he's practically grinning ear to ear. "I didn't know you were part Arctic Fox. Or so creative."

"Why don't you go bite your manhood off?" Aislin mutters in frustration at him, about ready to whirl and rip his throat out when the lock clicks and the heavy safe door starts to swing open. She stops it and gingerly reaches around it, disarming the trap attached to the door that's set for when the door is opened fully and only then letting the door swing open. With her usual care she sweeps the safe's contents into her backpack and swings the bag onto her back with a breathless grunt at the weight and shuts the door, spinning the dial around until it rests on the number she'd found it on and turning to go.

Yoko blocks her way. "Move, baka kitsune."

"On one condition."

"That I don't gut you where you stand?"

That grin that she's starting to despise somehow manages to get bigger. "That you go out on a date with me."

It takes every drop of self-control not to screech 'what??' or to take out one of her special blades and shred him on the spot. "Why the hells would I go and do such a stupid thing like that?" she hisses in fury.

"Because then I'd leave you alone. And 'cause if you don't, I'm gonna trip an alarm on purpose and watch you try and escape."

"You'd get caught much more faster," Aislin murmurs firmly. One silver eyebrow just rises in curiosity.

"And why do you say that?"

"Because I can just do this." After flipping him off, she simply dissolves into a whirl of snowflakes that spin around him mockingly before sweeping out the door, leaving him with an empty safe and five or six alarms screaming for security.

"One of these days," ha says at a normal voice, "I'm going to win her over." Then he simply blurs into invisibility and is gone, leaving a frost snowflake on the floor and a white rose petal on top of it.

===

"I didn't know you were capable of something like that, Aisuhana-chan," he tells her later when he catches up with the petite koorime outside of a nice sidewalk café. She's sitting quietly in one of the ironwork chairs, sipping on a cup of hot chocolate and reading a hardback book.

"Like what? Leaving you to hang or turning into snow?" she returns calmly with one eyebrow raised, hardly sparing him a glance.

"Both," he admits, settling into the chair across from her and shivering when an early snowflake floats onto the tip of his nose. "Brr, it's cold!"

"Only to everyone else, maybe," she purrs, taking another sip of her drink. "This is actually on the warm side for me."

"According to my sources, your internal thermometer's backwards on everything."

"I'll let you keep on believing that." Getting to her feet, she swallows the last of her drink, closes the book and hefts her bag onto her back, leaving a silver coin on the table as payment. Whistling faintly, she starts walking off into the growing blizzard.

"Hey, wait up!" Yoko calls, running to catch up with the startlingly quick Aislin. "You never said yes or no."

"To a date?" She looks at him from with corner of her eyes, incredulous. "Do you ever give up?"

"Nope! So, yes or no?"

"Let me put it to you in ways you might understand. Were I the last female in the three worlds, and you were the last male and looking like the Adonis himself with twice as much wit and wisdom, I would still refuse to share even so much as your company. To put it bluntly: not now, not in a million years, not ever, will I enjoy your company. Fuck yourself, Yoko. I won't be doing it for you." And she vanishes into the falling snow.

"Damn, I wish I could do that," he says cheerfully to himself as he turns and strolls back to the café while visibility is still good.

===

"Look, I don't feel like fighting right now. So I suggest you all just turn around and leave me be," Aislin says in that dangerously soft voice, looking at the numerous slavering demons that have surrounded her. It's now deep winter, and she's resorted to wearing that knee-length sleeveless kimono. This one is in much better shape than the one Hiei had first found her wearing, and is pale blue in color with a white obi. She's caught a cold while wandering--gods only know how--and she knows fighting will only make it worse. But it seems she has no choice.

"Pretty meat," one hisses greedily. "Tasty meat," another agrees, taking a shambling step forward. Aislin sighs, and places the palm of one hand against the fisted thumb of the other.

"I didn't want to do this, but you've signed your own deaths today," she sighs, pulling her hands apart and letting the blade glow with rei in the gray light. "Take your time, I'm in no hurry." Screeching in bloodcurdling voices the whole group launches itself at her, intent on doing many painful and unpleasant things to her pale flesh.

The first one impales itself on her blade, the next has its neck broken when the wiry thief-fighter slams the impaled demon into it, slinging both bodies away from her and into their comrades at the same time. Falling snowflakes begin to burn into the skins of the horde like acid, and pain-filled screams start replacing the hungry ones of those still coming. "Fools," Aislin scorns, dancing around the group and leaving chaos and death in her wake.

It is a matter of minutes before the world falls silent once again, save for the sound of one person's heavy breathing. Aislin stands in the middle of a circle of destruction, scratched and bleeding in a dozen places, more blood soaking her kimono and skin. Aislin looks down at herself and lets the blade fall into the snow to vanish, chuckling weakly. "Damn, and this was one of my favorite outfits, too."

"I'm surprised you lived through it," a voice scolds her from a few feet away. Through blurring vision she looks over to find Yoko stepping neatly through the carnage, concern marring that incredibly handsome face as he approaches with his silver coloring and white clothes making him harder to see against the snow. Only that perfectly tanned skin and the vibrant amber eyes are easily seen. "You've got a fever, I can feel the cold off you from here."

"Fuck off, fox," she rasps with a throat suddenly coated with sandpaper, pride making her straighten her spine to glare at him with what little energy she has left. "I don't need…" Her traitorous knees buckle, and the damned perfidious world begins to tilt as the light starts disappearing, "…your…help." She barely feels him catching her as her mind is swept up in a snowstorm of her own making.

======================================================

_I can still remember some of those fever dreams, and I wish I couldn't. I'm beginning to think that precognition, or at least dream-sight, really is one of my gifts, which would explain a couple of things. Most of those dreams were images or brief words, and I shall try to write them down as best I can, because they turned out to be very important._

======================================================

_An empty plain covered in snow. A white smile in a tanned face._

A blood-wine jewel held in someone's palm, now hung in the ear of a silver fox mask that opens amber-bead eyes and blinks.

"I promise I'll be back by morning."

"You've always been too stubborn, both of you!"

A tower standing against the backdrop of a full moon above a quiet sea. No, a light-house. No, a white fox that keens a song of pain and sorrow.

Laughter, the sounds of a fire and food cooking. "Love to."

"Fire and ice."

"Apologize to Koenma for me when you wake up."

A silvery snowflake spread on a cool grey surface, with words on it. A white rose growing from a once-stunning brooch. A broken chain lying in a glittering silver coil half in, half out of a puddle of blood. Blood. So much blood. All the world seems bathed in it. The sun turns a crimson smile filled with fangs towards a tiny blur of white.

"…your dreams have become the Void…"

The Void, a place where taste becomes sight, hearing becomes taste, sight becomes hearing, where there is no up or down but what you make it. Serenity itself. Nothing to bother a weary traveler, as weariness melts away. It's so quiet.

"Aislin." The Dreamer turns peaceful eyes the color of a tropical sea towards the violet-black dragon sitting in the nothingness in front of her, and smiles.

"Hello. Am I Dreaming?"

"Why are you here?" The question binds her with itself, tiny threads that knot and wrap themselves around the wondering Dreamer. From within and without, a voice the Dreamer knows as her own, and her Truth, speaks into the star-filled night.

"Because I have always been here. Because I am looking."

The dragon seems startled, for it blurs a moment into a crimson-eyed young man with hair black as sin and spangled with the outline of a single nova, and then resolves back into the dragon. "What are you looking for?"

The Dreamer smiles; she likes this game. "I don't know."

"You need to go back, Aislin. Your body dies while you are here."

"Body? You are_ silly. A Dream doesn't need a body. Come taste silver with me."_

"Wake up, Aislin." The words are nothing short of a command this time, and the Dreamer cries out when blue-white bands snap around her wrists, her ankles, pulling back to a reality she doesn't care about anymore. "I'm still keeping an eye on you, you know." Before darkness claims her again, her mind is filled by a single eye with a iris of glimmering violet, with a reassuring black-clad boy smiling at her from the pupil.

"Come on, Aisuhana, wake up," a worried voice pleads from very far away. The still white form on the pile of furs groans and reaches up with a shaky hand to bat away the folded cloth chilling her forehead.

"'S cold," comes the faint grumble. The faraway voice chokes and the half-awake koorime is swept into a fierce hug by tanned arms.

"Oh, thank Inari! You _are_ still alive!" A warning growl, however weak and thready, warns him to lay her back down before her fangs find purchase in his chest.

"Of course I'm still alive, you damned fox," Aislin rasps hoarsely, staring at him with fogged turquoise eyes. "I feel too terrible to be dead." Yoko gazes at her warmly, drinking in the sight of her fever-thinned, flushed face giving him that precious glare that he thought he'd never see again. Without even looking, his hands move to a green bowl beside him and retrieve a cloth, wringing it out thoroughly before attempting to place it on her forehead. It too, is batted away in irritation, and the look now clearly says 'next one's going to be teeth'. He finds himself chuckling weakly as worry and stress just flow away.

"I'm not surprised about that," he tells her, scooting a bit closer to attempt feeding her with a lukewarm bowl of broth. "You've been out for, let's see, about two weeks."

"Two _weeks_?" she squeaks in dismay, staring at him. He takes the opportunity to pop a spoonful of broth into her open mouth. She bites the bowl of the spoon in half, swallows the broth, and spits out the remainder of the spoon. "Don't do that."

"I'll have you know you were easier to take care of half-dead," Yoko grumbles in annoyance, grabbing another spoon that he had ready. To his surprise, his unwilling patient snorts, attempts to restrain anything else and fails, and breaks down in a fit of helpless giggling. Confused, her gives her his best uncertain smile and she starts giggling harder, rolling onto her side under the top layer of furs and clutching at her ribs.

"Your face!" she gasps when she catches a breath. "I think that's the first time I've ever seen you annoyed! Oh, that was so funny!" She starts calming down, catches sight of that uncertain smile with his ears tilted different directions, shoulders hunched like a pup expecting to get scolded, and is overcome with another giggle-fit. It takes her a good four or five minutes to get herself to stop, and that mostly because she ran out of breath and the energy to giggle.

Encouraged by this new reaction, Yoko plumps a couple of pillows behind her and helps her sit up, settling the bowl in her lap and handing her the spoon while he picks up the half-dozen or so emerald-green tears gems that had leaked out during her giggle-fit and putting them into a small pouch. "If you can get even one bite of that on your own, I won't try to feed you unless you ask. But if you can't, I feed you without having to worry about the loss of another spoon. Deal?" He politely drops the pouch onto the furs next to her hip and cocks his head to one side, waiting for her answer.

"Can I complain about it?"

"Yes."

"Deal, then." She makes a good try at it, but ends up spilling most of it onto the towel he's spread across her front. Deftly he plucks the spoon from her trembling fingers and refills it with the broth.

"Say 'ah'," he tells her teasingly.

"How about I tell you ah--mphf!" She glares at him weakly while swallowing. "--shove it," she finishes grumpily and frowns, rolling the taste of the broth around in her mouth before asking, "What is this stuff? Deer?"

"A human creature called a cow. The meat is called beef. One of my men brought it over last week, and we've decided to smoke most of it."

"Not bad," is the grudging comment. He just looks at her expectantly. Giving in, she opens her mouth and says, "Ah."

===================================================

_It took me another week to get any kind of strength back, and even then I couldn't walk to the bathroom by myself. Yoko would scoop me up now and again and take me on a tour of his caves and the band of thieves who lived there, all of them under his command. I think either he threatened them or the ready-to-bite expression I wore whenever he carried me around scared them off, for not a single interested glance was sent my way. Of course, just because I couldn't walk on my own didn't mean I was going to stop being as stubborn as hell._

===================================================

"You should still be in bed, Aisuhana," Yoko scolds his 'patient' while trying to support her without making it look like he is. The two are traveling slowly down Aislin's street, heading for her apartment that had been guarded by some of the silver fox's band while the ice apparition was recovering. "You can't fight in your condition."

"Fuck it, fox, keep your voice down!" she hisses at him, pulling off the illusion that _she_ supported _him_ much more convincingly than he did. "You want the whole neighborhood to hear??"

"So what?" His expression is mulish, ears flattened back in serious disapproval and the stubborn streak she is starting to respect.

"Use that so called brilliant brain of yours, bakayarou!" she snarls under her breath. "This is a town of _thieves, brigands, _and_ cutthroats_. They aren't above coshing you over the head and robbing you clean, and _I_ want to get out of here in one piece."

"This fox botherin' you, Aisu-san?" A man she recognizes as the fighter she'd given a gold chain and a jewel-setting to (and later befriended out of boredom) walks up, looking to be in much better shape than he used to be and rather annoyed at the causal way this silver stranger seems to be manhandling his benefactor. "I'd be happy to send him on his way, if'n you want." This is accompanied by a popping of knuckles and a rather hopeful and bloodthirsty smile.

She gives the man a wicked grin as his name surfaces in her memory. "Actually…" Yoko makes a very unhappy sound from beside her and she relents. "No, Mizu-san, he's not. Well, he is, but nothing I can't handle. Thanks for the offer though, I'll remember you made it." In thieves' cant that means that she'd remember and offer him a good turn if such an opportunity presents itself. "How's business?"

The man's face breaks into a crooked smile. "Own it. My own merc company an' everythin'. I got married last month to this pretty little thing that worked at Tik's and we're expectin' sometime roun' August."

"That's great to hear," she tells him warmly, reaching out and giving his wrist a congratulatory clasp. "Just see you don't end up on the wrong side of me someday, ne?"

He laughs and nods, cat-green eyes sparkling with health and humor. "Aye, that! And it's all thanks to you, Aisu-san. If the chance t'do you a good turn comes up, and it ain't somethin' I won't do, look me up. Desu ne?"

"I will. Jya ne, Mizu-san." And the cat demon walks away, whistling casually with his hands in his pockets. Yoko is staring down at her in disbelief.

"By Inari, you _can_ be nice!"

"I'm nice to people I _like_," she retorts as they resume walking. Well, he walks, she gets half-carried. "You are a stubborn pain-in-the-ass that doesn't understand the meaning of the word 'no', and who always interrupts me in the middle of work to be even more of a pain in the ass."

"I helped you, didn't I?"

"Did I ask for it?" she counters coldly, and is abruptly let go. She quickly locks her knees and glares at the hurt-looking thief glaring right back at her.

"If you think you can walk back to your home alone, fine. If not, you can call that fighter back. I've tried being annoying and I've tried being nice. I've even tried being myself and _still_ you reject me. I've had enough. I'm going home." And he turns and stalks off, tail lashing to show all the world his distress. Snorting, Aislin looks around and narrows her eyes at the apparitions and demons staring at her and the retreating Yoko.

"Don't you all have some business to take care of?" she asks icily, and abruptly the bystanders all find something that they've forgotten to do that must be done right now. Within seconds, the cramped little street is empty, leaving Aislin to grumble quietly under her breath and begin slowly making her way home.

She gets about fifteen feet before her legs begin trembling and she starts to fall over. But before that can happen, a hand firmly catches hold of her elbow and braces her illness-weakened body. Her startled turquoise eyes find Mizu standing beside her, looking amused.

"You really are a snake-eater at heart, ain'tcha, Aisu-san?"

"Takes one to know one, I suppose," she sighs back. "Maybe _you'll _be better at playing the pretend game than that stubborn fox."

"The I'm-not-up-to-snuff-but-damned-if-I'm-gonna-look-weak game?"

"Yeah, that one."

"Might be. Played it a time or two meself. Your place's this way, ain't it?"

"Sure is." They start 'walking' together, neither seeming to lean at all, though a good deal of Aislin's weight is supported on the elbow he still holds. "Hey, Mizu-san, do you know a good place to train?"

"Why don't you wait 'till you're walkin' on your own before you go back to the sword, eh, Aisu-san? It'd make things a lot easier," he suggests with calm ease, though he does grin at her dagger-sharp glare. "But when ya do get that far, you c'n come and train at my company's yard. We're thinkin' of making this town our permanent base." With the ease of practice he helps her take the stairs two at a time, and she glares the two young tiger apparitions away from her door. Gesturing for him to come with her inside, she lifts a snowy eyebrow at him and smirks.

"Baggit's Town become a merc haven? That'll be interesting to see." She heads over to her chair and plops down, reaching into her belt-pouch and pulling out a small bag. Opening it, she tosses something small and sparkling at him which he catches reflexively. Looking down at the item, he finds an emerald green bead clear as water rolling around his palm. He holds it up between thumb and forefinger, quizzical.

"What's this?"

She gives him a careful glance before replying, stuffing the bag into the space between cushion and chair-arm. "That's a koorime tear gem. A laughter one. It's yours."

"Aisu-san, mine?" He looks at her with understanding dawning on his triangular face. "Payment?"

"Call it a gift for helping without wanting something back. That's even rarer than me laughing 'till I cry." She gives him a crooked smile and a wink. "Or think of it as a down payment for renting your services as a trainer when I get back on my feet. Either or, it's up to you."

He just shakes his head ruefully as he tucks the gem away into a pocket, a tiny smile showing the tips of snowy fangs. "You're wasted on the underworld, Aisu-san. If you ever think about joining a good merc band, think o' me first. I'd love to have you as co-captain."

"As far as I'm concerned, Mizu-san," she responds as he walks out the door, "the day I become a real merc is the day all three worlds totally freeze over." She thinks about some of the demons she's met and adds, "For more than a year." Still shaking his head, chuckling, the cat demon closes the door firmly behind him, letting her wards and traps spring back into place. Sighing as the irritation she'd built up while at Yoko's caves melt away, she uses furniture and walls to get to her small icebox and pulls out a nearly-frozen drink and a bowl of leftover soup from inside and gives up on dignity. Sitting down and facing backwards, she simply scoots back to her chair and climbs back into it, looking pleased with her progress and the total silence enveloping her senses. Setting the drink to thaw on her endtable, she carefully cradles the near 'scalding' bowl in her lap and digs in.

=====================================================

_Two weeks, I think, passed without incident and my strength returned in leaps and bounds. Strange, though, that I hadn't returned to that strangely comforting place in my dreams, that place Hiei had described to me as the Void and a realm that takes more than mere physical strength to survive in. Everyone knew about the Void, of course, but not many knew that much about it. He told me he'd been studying about the place for years, and the image that conjures up--him crouched over a scholar's desk, dusty books piled around him and spectacles perched on the end of his nose, a ball of rei-light hovering over his shoulder--still makes me smile. Not long after that, I came into physical contact with him for the last time before I met a human boy named Yusuke Urameshi._

======================================================

Aislin looks up when her alarms begin to vibrate warningly but do not activate, the petite koorime curled on the floor in an advanced Yoga form in an effort to retone unexercised muscles. Then she recognizes the taste of the approaching rei and races for the door, throwing it open and pouncing joyfully on the startled kajihenge about to knock.

"Kikan! Holy hells, it's been ages! Wh--what in the nine circles happened to _you_? Hang on, wait a second…" Before he has a chance to respond, she hauls him into her apartment and shuts the door. "There. Now we're aurally, physically, and everything-else shielded. So tell me why my closest ally has gone from A-class to _D_-class in less than two centuries."

Hiei settles gingerly down into the chair she leads him to, rubbing worn hands over a thinned face in exhaustion. "I went back."

Her gaze turns sharp. "Back?" Comprehension dawns. "_Back?_ To the _Island_?? For aisu-kami's sake, _why??_"

"I had to know," he rasps, "know about everything. My mother, any family, whatever I could." Sharpness turns to wariness and she sits back on her heels, watching him.

"And?"

"My mother's dead, Aislin. And…and I have a sister."

"Mm. Yukina-chan. I knew that." She leaps backwards when his hand darts out to grab her, easily evading those slender fingers. His face is filled with anger now, and he stands to take a step nearer.

"You _knew??_"

She stands, rock-solid in the face of his emotional hurricane. "Yes, I knew. Honestly, Hiei, I lived there for seven years with the perfectly good hearing of a child. You think I didn't _listen_?"

The anger turns to anguish, and he drops bonelessly back into the chair. "Then why didn't you _tell_ me, Aislin?"

"What would have been the point? They'd have killed you instantly if given the chance, and Yukina didn't know either. Does she now?" He silently shakes his head and she continues. "I also didn't want to sign the koorime race's death sentence when you only grew stronger, Hiei. I may not love our race, or respect it that much, but they are still our people and I _will not_ see a single one harmed." One hand reaches out and gently ruffles the spiky hair/fur in a soothing gesture. "That does include you, mirror. Telling you would have done nothing but cause you pain, but not telling caused you just as much. I decided to err on the side of caution, like always."

The motion to escape that lulling touch is half-hearted at best, and she takes that as a Hiei-style invitation to move closer and run her fingers through the shorter hairs on the back of his neck. Reluctantly, he bows his head until the top of his head is resting on her breastbone, and lets go. Tears fall with soft plinks onto the thick rug, blues and greens and pastel rose all mixed together into a random design on the maroon rug, his thin shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. Humming softly, Aislin just keeps petting him, eyes drifting shut.

"Ow," Hiei mutters a few seconds later, pulling away and rubbing the back of his skull. Aislin blinks when he holds a grey gem out ruefully to her. "Guess we both hurt, mirror. This one's yours."

"Ah, sorry," she apologizes, turning pink and taking the gem. "Hope it didn't hit too hard," she adds, wiping away the last bit of water from her cheeks and automatically catching the three new grey stones that drop into her fingers.

"Nah. 'S okay, I guess. I still haven't answered your question, though. You wanted to know why I'm not A-class anymore." He bends down and starts picking up his tear gems without looking her in the eyes. "I went and did something after I found out about Yukina."

"What did you do?" she prompts him gently, and he straightens, pulling his white headband away and letting her see for herself. Gasping, Aislin remembers the eye that reflected Hiei in her fever dreams, and she involuntarily reaches towards his forehead and the violet eye that stares unblinkingly at her. "Hiei…you got a Jagan?"

"Yeah." He flinches at her gentle touch, but allows her to trace the skin around the brilliantly-colored orb set into his forehead above his real eyes. Sealed power pulses against her touch, and she draws back as though burned.

"Yeowch. It's sucked all of your power into itself, the greedy thing!" Remembering her lore about the Jagan, she amends hastily, "And I'll bet it'll put it to good use, too." The malignant edge the eye's gaze had taken fades back into neutrality, while Hiei's brow furrows at the insult and compliment in one breath before clearing as he too, remembers. _'It is dangerous to insult the Jagan, for it has a mind of its own and takes revenge on those disrespectful to it.'_

"I've already accepted the loss of most of my power, Aislin," he says quietly. "Because this lets me watch her." He looks abashed. "And you, too."

"So that _was_ you, in my dreams a month or so ago. You were the dragon."

"Am the dragon." A reluctant smile.

"Are the dragon, then. And that…that really was the Void?"

"Yes, and I'd like to know just _how_ you got there in the first place. As far as either of us knows you don't have Oracle youkai in your bloodline, and they're the only ones who can go in and out of the Void of their own free will."

"That would make two of us, Kikan, because I have no idea how I went there in the first place. It was…nice, though."

"Bet you felt like hell after I got you properly reattached." Hiei's expression could be called nothing but a smirk, and Aislin sticks her tongue out at him in reprimand.

"I couldn't tell you," is her prim response. "I got knocked flat on my ass by that fever, and I felt like shit anyway."

"You always did have pretty vulgar language for a female."

"Want me to really start cussing?"

"No." A snowy eyebrow rises in curiosity in a _'why not?'_ gesture and he shrugs in response. "I'd want to take notes, and I lost my notepad and pencil somewhere."

"Ah. Well, I bet you're hungry, and with the little I've been needing to eat, my icebox is pretty well stocked. Want me to get you something?" His stomach chooses that particular moment to insist that Hiei feed it, letting out a very loud, rather long growl. "I'll take _that_ as a yes," she laughs, heading towards the kitchen on her much-stronger legs. "Oh, and Hiei? Don't take offense, but you really, really need a bath. Use the shower while I cook you something."

"I don't have anything clean--"

"Nonsense. You're about my size, you can wear some of my gear while we get what's left of your clothes into decent shape. Or," she pokes her head out of the kitchen, a wicked smile blooming across her face, "you could just walk around starkers. It wouldn't be the first time I've seen you sans clothes."

"Perverted koorime!" Hiei laughs, giving in and heading for the small bathroom in the back of her home.

"Sensible koorime!" she calls back, laughing just as hard as he while she bustles around the tiny but well-kept kitchen. "At least _I_ know how to stay clean!"

====

"It's nice to be clean _and_ full again," Hiei mumbles sleepily, his head resting on the arm he's stretched out on the table. A grey towel is wrapped firmly around his waist, his damp hair gleaming in the apartment kitchen's bright light. Aislin looks over at him sympathetically, able to see clearly how much months of poor diet and constant fighting have pared away fat and the first layer of muscle, and having a perfect view of the new scars he's picked up in those fights.

"For a while there I thought I'd have to run out for groceries," she teases gently while finishing her own small meal. "I've never seen you put away that much food."

"Hungry," he grumbles in defense, and she just smiles at him over the rim of her hot chocolate.

"I'm not making fun of you, porcupine-head, calm down. I'm just saying you should have visited me sooner if you needed a bolt-hole to rest in. Speaking of rest, I can take the couch for a couple days. You look like you're about to conk out for a solid week." Eyes already half closed, he nods a couple of times without lifting his head before letting his eyes shut entirely.

Getting out of her chair, Aislin helps him to his feet and braces the barely-conscious kajihenge against her own slender frame, steering him towards her bedroom. "You'll have to wake up long enough to help steer a path to the bed, silly," she chuckles, "my room's a mess like it always is." Hiei snorts softly but rouses long enough to help pick a way over the piles of clothes, books, scrolls, and the odd weapon before allowing himself to tumble onto the bed with zero grace, already asleep the second Aislin let go.

Shaking her head and smiling, she tucks the exhausted fire apparition in under a heavy quilt and brushes back the rebellious bangs with a gentle hand. "Sweet dreams, mirror."

==============================================================================================================================

Baka kitsune: Stupid fox

Aisuhana: Ice-flower

Inari: Japanese goddess. Foxes' patron goddess, uses them as messengers.

Bakayarou: Idiot

Mizu: Water (I know, odd for a cat demon, but there ya go.)

Jya ne: See you later/good bye (casual)

Koorime: Ice Maiden

Kajihenge: fire apparition

Kikan: mirror

Jagan: evil eye, grants clairvoyance and several other abilities to user

Youkai: demons/apparitions

Aisu-kami: Ice God


	3. Chapter Three

Not much to say. ;P Please read and review, and keep an open mind. This is not a real yaoi fic, will not be a real yaoi fic, and will not involve that much fluff, either, compared to some other YYH fics. If you can't handle the idea of a mature person walking around starkers, this is not a safe chapter for you to read. [grins] Though I don't include much description of whoever's going sans clothes, anyway. I trust in my readers to supply their own mental images. ;P Thank you for your patience, and on with the fic.

Chapter Three

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"I wanted to say I'm sorry," a rich voice whispers behind a focused Aislin. With the tiniest of squeaks, she once more leaps for the ceiling and glares irritably down at the rather embarrassed fox standing below her, breathing hard and waiting for the surge of fright/adrenaline to subside.

"You could have picked a better time!" she hisses back after she drops, this time not even bothering to fill in her finger-holes since the whole place would be brought down to the ground by morning. "And _why _in the Ice God's name do you have to keep _sneaking up_ on me?? I _hate_ that!"

"Habit," he whispers back, shrugging one shoulder in a helpless gesture. "Can't help it."

"Well, _try_," she seethes under her breath. Without another word she goes back to cracking the safe holding her prize: a beautiful master-work katana to replace the one Hiei'd lost while recovering from the implanting of his Jagan. She intends it as a birthday present, since she knows quite well what day he was born on and she knows he doesn't get many gifts. One like this might get her back in his good graces that much faster--not that she really cares about what side she's on--but either way, he is going to get it.

Her smile is triumphant when the lock clicks and she pops the door open, traps already disabled well before she started. The owner of this place is a fool she's been wanting to defame for a while now, and this gives her a perfect excuse. He is under the impression that if he acts as though his stuff is worthless, then so will the many thieves and robbers who would otherwise be drooling over his pretties. Hence, poor security, poor alarm system, easy, easy pickings. Her pack already bulges with stolen loot, the katana will be the last.

The katana shines in the sliver of moonlight falling through the window, and it is with properly reverent hands that she lifts it out of the safe, whispering to it, "Your new master will prize you fine, I think, and use you as you were meant to be used, instead of locking you away in the darkness." The blade throbs in her hands in recognition of her intentions, and the feeling she gets from it with what little Empathy she has is a patient but potent joy.

"Who are you giving it to?" Yoko whispers to her, and so elated is she with her prize that she gives him a brief and very pleased little smile.

"An old friend who's crashing at my place. He lost his old one, and this one will match him very, very well. Steal what you want from here, Yoko; I'm bringing this place down by dawn."

"As my lady wishes," the silver fox intones quietly, placing a hand over his heart, bowing his head, and vanishing from sight. Restraining the urge to break into a fit of evil chuckling, Aislin carefully wraps the katana in a length of grey cotton until it is simply a long, thin package and places it reverently in her pack. With one last look around she grins once again, unable to help herself, and heads for the exit, slowly emptying a large container of high spirits along the way. The profit she'll make on this place alone tonight will more than make up for the cost of the expensive booze, and besides, she's got a decent sized flask stashed away at home to enjoy at her leisure by noon.

Patiently she waits in a tree outside the rundown warehouse until a silver shadow materializes below her, virtually staggering under the weight of his take. With a smug, wicked smile she lifts an eyebrow at him and Yoko mouths a single word, 'clean'. Without any hesitation she takes out a small canvas-wrapped ball and pulls off the covering. Yoko's eyes widen. In her palm sits a firework big enough to level the place by itself. Added to the spirits he'd smelled on the way out…he grins in boyish delight and looks over at the building expectantly. Taking out a match from her boot, Aislin lights the fuse, chucks it into a high window and then runs like hell with Yoko on her heels.

The two take refuge on a roof without windows and look back just in time to see a brilliant flash light up the night sky, accompanied by a deafening boom and an explosion of bright colors in the shape of a 'smiley-face' sticking its tongue out. A second later there's another explosion and words join the fading image. 'NYAH NYAH HIGURASHI. BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME!! WHITEOUT'

"Wicked, wicked creature," Yoko tells his companion gleefully, and she actually winks at him back, still buoyed by her easy success.

"Why thank you very much. Next heist, Yoko." And with a jaunty wave of the first two fingers on her right hand, she steps back off the roof. Rushing over, Yoko sees a whirl of snow dancing down the snow-filled street as though simply blown that way by a real wind.

He looks down at the riches practically dripping off his arms, chest, and shoulders, and this time grins with pure avarice. "And so damn profitable, too."

=====================================================

__

The thought of that heist still brings a smile to my face--I was living off that take alone for over ten years, and the ease with which I stole was a very nice change. And Yoko? He stopped being quite_ so annoying. I even got his help planning Hiei's mini birthday bash._

=====================================================

"Happy Birthday, Kikan!" Hiei is awakened three days after he first fell asleep by something fairly heavy and warm landing on him and the playful, smacking kiss on his cheek that follows about two seconds later. Floundering up out of the blankets he'd nearly buried himself under, he sits up and glares blearily at the waay-too-bouncy female sitting astride his hips.

"Get offa me, you damned snowflake. 'S too early for this crap." Aislin merely grins at him and bounces up and down a few times, giggling. That wakes him up a bit in a bad way. The last time she giggled like that he'd had to clean up the mess she'd left all over the bar-room floor, and he doubted the inn-keeper had ever gotten all the blood out of the wood.

"But it's your birthday, Hiei! I got it all planned out and everything!" He narrows his maroon eyes at her suspiciously.

"Have you had _sugar_ this morning, baka onna?" She holds up the wrapper for a new candy some apparition had come out with, essentially just sugar powder that comes in different colors and flavors. Pixies had been found to be especially fond of this candy, hence the new treat's name.

"Just a pixie-stick, honest!"

"With, or with_out_ the pixie?" He asks this for a very, very good reason, dreading the answer. She gives him the abashed-but-adorable look and sticks the tip of her tongue (colored a medium green) out. Not good.

"Erm, with the pixie but he deserved it for trying to bite me."

"Oh, ye gods," Hiei groans, flopping back and attempting to wrestle the covers away from the hyper Aislin with limited success. The last--and only other--time she'd eaten a pixie she'd acted like a cat on twenty pounds of catnip. _It really is too early for this crap,_ Hiei groans to himself after giving up on getting back to sleep. "Who gave you the pixie and the sugar?"

"Yoko."

"Who's Yoko?"

"A very stubborn fox that's been following me on heists and stuff. He's not so bad once you get to know him but he can be a real pain in the ass like you and when I told him it was your birthday he gave me the candy and the pixie and told me I could have the candy and I should give the pixie to you but the pixie bit me so I ate him out of reflex and I'm sorry he was supposed to be _your_ present and all but---mph!" Hiei had placed a hand over her mouth to cease her babble and sighs as he swings his legs over the edge of the bed.

"I can never understand how you can talk that long without taking a breath."

She bounces a few more times on the now-empty bed and giggles. "When I'm sober neither can I." Suddenly she remembers her original purpose in waking him up and picks up a long package from the rumpled blankets where she'd dropped it, holding it out with eyes sparkling. "Here's your present, Hiei! Open it!"

Warily the fire apparition takes the package and slowly unwraps the cotton fabric covering it. His eyes widen in surprise and awe when the last of it falls away and a magnificent katana sits, sheathed, in his hands. He unsheathes it enough to find the maker's mark engraved into the blade just under the hilt, and his eyes widen further when he sees it.

"How did you manage to get a Manzanaki blade?" he breathes, cradling it to his chest like it is the greatest treasure in the world. "He only made ten of these."

Aislin just gives him a Look, the sugar already burning itself out of her system. "Take a wild guess, Hiei."

He just grins and reaches out to ruffle her hair. She permits the caress and actually leans into it, her Arctic fox ears popping up and tilting in different directions in pleasure when he rubs that spot just behind her normal, sharply pointed ear. "Who'd you swipe it from?"

"Higurashi-baka." Hiei laughs and puts the katana down beside him, sweeping the startled Aislin into a brief, fierce hug.

"Thank you, Aislin. This is, without a doubt, the best present anyone has ever given me. Thank you."

"You're welcome, Hiei-kun!" She tickles his ribs playfully and quickly swipes a cat-rough tongue against his bare shoulder in a non-flirty gesture. "But doncha think you should put on some clothes before I take you out for a celebratory meal?" He pushes her away playfully, laughing.

"Perverted ice-fox!"

"Sensible ice-fox," she counters just as playfully. "I want you to myself when we go out, not have a bunch of other females hanging all over you."

"Jealous?"

"If I say yes can I get another ear rub?" she asks hopefully, and has the blanket yanked over her head. By the time she wrestles it off, breathless with laughter, Hiei already has his mended and clean clothing on and is standing in front of her vanity mirror trying to get his hair/fur into some semblance of order. Grinning, most of the sugar--and pixie--already out of her high-speed system, Aislin gets to her feet, walks over to him, and picks up her brush from the vanity table. "Here, let me try."

"Hn," Hiei grunts, still not quite fully awake despite Aislin's efforts, and allows her to wet the brush at her bathroom sink before beginning to groom his head-fur.

"Always amazes me how much harder your hair-fur looks than it is," the koorime says cheerfully, wielding the brush with practiced skill. Hiei's head lolls back and he snorts, absorbed in the feeling of the brush running through his hair. "There!" she says in satisfaction a few minutes later, setting the brush down and taking a step back to admire her work. Hiei's hair now bristles straight up like it's supposed to in short, gleaming and silky-smooth spikes that are edged in dark, dark blue highlights. "Quite the handsome kajihenge."

"Quite the pretty koorime, when you aren't bouncing off the walls," Hiei counters teasingly, reaching out and tugging on a strand of silky white. "Burned off that pixie yet?"

"Just about. I think I like having a little buzz, though. But come on, Takinada's place ain't gonna stay open all day!" And laughing merrily, she pulls an unresisting Hiei out the door.

===

Yoko is wandering the streets late that night and has just passed a tavern when a furious shout makes him stop and turn. The bouncer, a very burly bear-demon, drops the two apparitions he'd been carrying by the scruffs of their shirts onto their feet just past the door, growling, "And don't come back 'till yer sober!" Drunken laughter reaches the fox's silvery ears as the two straighten and dust themselves off unsteadily before weaving their way towards him. With a jolt, Yoko recognizes Aisuhana as the paler of the two celebrants, and moves to intercept them. He doesn't recognize the other, a youngish apparition with wine-berry eyes and hair that defies gravity and color standards--he'd never seen a starburst pattern of white in black hair before--but assumes it must be the friend Aisuhana had wanted to give a good birthday celebration to.

"Heeyyy, ish Yoko!" slurs the koorime when they notice him, and she grins. "Thansh fer the idea o' taverrn crawlin'. 'Sh the mosht fun I've eveer had." She lets go of her inebriated friend and spins around in a circle, arms flung out wide. "Whee!"

Holding in his laughter, Yoko gently catches her and steadies the leaning male at the same time. "What have you two been pouring down your throats to get like this, huh?"

"What haven't we?" the boy manages, sounding much more sober than she but no less cheerful. "Think the weakesht shtuff--stuff--was Takanada's Demonslayers."

"And you two are still standing?" Yoko's respect for their staying power rises considerably. "Damn, you're gonna have some nasty hangovers tomorrow."

"Come on, Hiei!" Aisuhana whines from the other side of Yoko where she clings to his arm to keep from falling over. "We still ain't hit the Bumblin' Badger or the Cutpurse yet! They're gonna closhe in five hourshh! Lessh go!"

"Sure," the young male agrees readily, and they start to stumble off in the wrong direction. Sighing, Yoko catches up and turns them around, then walks beside them.

"I think I'd better stick with you two until you sober up. Inari only knows what kind of trouble you'd find if I didn't. Or what would find you, for that matter."

====

"Oh, my head," Aislin groans upon regaining consciousness, shielding her eyes against a blinding light off to her left. "What the hells did I do?"

"While I was with you?" an amused voice booms from a short distance away. "Let's see. You drank seven more Demonslayers, ten Honeycombs, three entire bottles of unfiltered sake--by yourself--a bottle of Dragonblood, seven shots of vodka, fourteen and a half shots of whiskey, and two glasses of wine. That would be enough alcohol to kill seven adult human males, by the by, and that was only on the first day."

Whimpering at the way the voice reverberates in a sloshing skull, she manages to crack her eyes open and peeks in the right direction. A very amused Yoko sits on a chair beside her bed, his teeth startling white in his tanned face. "What are you doing here, Yoko?"

"Keeping on eye on my favorite koorime and her friend. Do you remember getting kicked out of the last three taverns?"

"I don't remember anything after my eighth Demonslayer at Takanada's." That smile on Yoko's face just gets wider.

"I have some prime blackmail material, then. Hiei might remember more than you do, he's fire apparition so I suspect his metabolism burned the alcohol faster than yours did. I'll have to ask him when he wakes up." And he gestures at the space behind her. Aislin turns--_away from the light, huzzah_!--and finds Hiei lying in the bed beside her, arms wrapped around her waist without so much as a stitch of clothes between them.

Rapidly checking her internal systems over--as fast as a headache the size of Makai would let her, anyway--she notes that the only thing sore is her head and her feet. Noting her expression, Yoko refrains from chuckling, knowing full well that would hurt quite a bit with her hangover.

"No, you two didn't do anything besides lose all your clothing between your front door and here, before piling together like a couple of kits and passing out the second you got comfy. You'll notice I'm not looking at anything besides your face, by the way. Please pull the blanket up before temptations overwhelm me." Obliging by burying herself back under the covers to get away from the light streaming through her bedroom window, her next question is a bit muffled but still audible.

"How long did our binge last?"

"By my account? If you started on Hiei's birthday, I'd say it lasted nearly a week."

"Ow."

"'Ow' indeed."

"No, I mean ow! Hiei, you little prick! Stop biting!"

"Mrph?" The second lump stirs, and a rumpled Hiei sticks his head out of the blankets like a parody of a turtle to blink owlishly in the light at the silver-haired stranger. "Nani? Dare wa?"

"I'm Yoko Kurama. Aisuhana-chan might have mentioned me. I gave you the pixie for your birthday."

"She ate it." Yoko's expression suddenly changes to that of someone who has just drunk something very fizzy and is attempting to keep that fizz from escaping.

"Ate it?" he squeaks, grin nearly splitting his face in half. Aislin squirms around underneath the blankets, which has the effect of shoving Hiei mostly out of them and halfway onto the floor, halfway into Yoko's lap.

"It bit me," she explains from her dark sanctuary. "And my first reflex when something bites me is to bite back--count yourself lucky, Hiei--and it's not my fault the damned things are bite-sized, anyway."

"Ate it," Yoko squeaks again in confirmation, and gives up. It escapes as an odd hiss from between clenched teeth at first, shaking his shoulders, and starts getting louder. Hiei has a perfect view from his place with his head on Yoko's thigh of the fox's face, framed by his silver hair. The elegant mouth is twisted upwards, eyes squeezed shut, ears flat back. Finally he loses the battle entirely and warm, rich laughter pours from his throat, head flung back while he sits there helplessly and lets the merriment wash over him. "Ate it," he chortles again, unable to help himself. "A pixie. She ate it. Hahahahahaha!"

"You wouldn't be laughing if you had to deal with her on a pixie-trip," Hiei grumbles, righting himself and reaching for the black pants slung over the headboard of the wide bed. "Damned things are catnip to her."

"Don't laugh so loud," is the plea from the lump of blankets marking Aislin. "My head is killing…'scuse me!" And before Yoko can get more than a glimpse of a long, pale back liberally decorated with scars she is out from under the blankets and in the small bathroom, the sounds of retching easily heard.

"What the?" Yoko asks, still floored by the idea of a streaking 'Aisuhana'.

"Must've remembered--"

"HOW COULD YOU LET ME **_KISS_** THAT REPULSIVE EXCUSE FOR A DEMON??" comes the outraged shriek of agony from the bathroom. Hiei grins evilly, dropping the pants onto a dirty clothes pile.

"--the slug demon and his bet."

"Augh! I'm never going to get the taste of that out of my mouth! Do either of you have acid? I need to use it for mouthwash!" Hiei and Yoko look at each other, start to grin, and then both start laughing as the indignant, horrified commentary continues all through three rounds of toothbrushing with the strongest paste in the medicine cabinet, five rinses with especially strong mouthwash, and a serious flossing. Then comes a repeat when the floss brings up a chunk of something very slimy. "ICK, ACK, UCK! UCKUCKUCK! All the fires of whatever passes as hell take that foul thing and his entire brood for that dirty, sneaky, underhanded muck-drinking slop-eating sleeps-with-his-own-mothers-then-sells-them fuckin' trick!!"

"Perhaps soap would get that mouth cleaner," Yoko suggests dryly, and Hiei looks at him, horrified. But to the fire apparition's surprise, the cursing stops for a moment, and a wan face pokes from around the door and grins weakly at him.

"You know, that's not a bad idea? Got any hydrochloric face-wash stuff? I'm fresh out." And her head disappears again for another round of brushing. Hiei stares at the amused silver fox in something close to awe.

"She _must_ like you or something, fox. If I said that, even in jest, I'd get my head bitten off, and I'm not talking about the one on my shoulders," Hiei murmurs to him, the fox's eyes widening a bit in startlement.

"No joke? You think so?"

"Hn. You mean you hadn't noticed?"

"I thought she hated my guts."

"Oh, that. No, she only does that with people she holds closer than friends. Take me. She'll act like a bitch just because she knows I can be a bastard right back at her without either of us getting our feelings hurt. Brother and sister kind of thing, you know?"

"But I don't _want_ to be a brother!"

"I doubt you are. Remember what I said about the soap." While that startling revelation sinks in, Hiei gets up and vanishes into the bathroom. There is the sound of a brief scuffle for the shower before the spiky-haired male gets tossed right back out again and the water turns on.

"Peek and you're both dead!" is the fair warning given by the koorime before the showerhead is turned on and the sound of water running is the only thing heard from that direction. Hiei turns to the slack-jawed fox and shrugs carelessly before walking over to the small dresser and digging through the bottom two drawers, coming up with a grey shirt with the sleeves cut away and a pair of black trousers. Completely uncaring as to the fact that he is still walking around in the nude, the fire apparition picks his way over the trap-covered floor and out, heading for the kitchen. A second layer of running water joins the first, accompanied by a yip of dismayed pain from the shower. "Hiei! Warn me next time!"

"Sorry!"

"No, you're not! You like playing pranks on me!"

"You leave too many openings not to!"

"Prick!"

"Snowflake!"

"Kisama!"

"Ikeike!"

"He wasn't joking," Yoko says in mild awe as he listens to the cheerful argument between the two elemental spirits. A knock at the front door rouses him from his stunned trance, and judging by the sound and tempo a rather annoyed person is standing beyond the locked entrance. Shaking his head at himself the kitsune rises to his feet and simply hops over the mess, walking down the short hallway and using the keycode he'd picked up from 'his' koorime when they'd finally come back here.

About to bang on the door a fourth time, a very startled Mizu stares at the fully clothed fox towering over him, a silvery eyebrow raised expectantly. "Yes?"

"Ah…er…that is…what the hells are you doin' at Aisu-san's house?" the cat demon finally manages to spit out, pointing at the amused Yoko.

"Making sure she gets home from a week-long tavern crawl in one piece, if one doesn't count the number of pieces her skull and dignity are in now. Might I inquire as to the reason for _your_ visit?"

"I came to get her for her trainin' session. Nine am wake-up, three hours long, twice a week. She missed the last class so I came to get her myself." A grin bares the tips of two very un-catlike fangs and he shares a conspiratorial look with the fox. "So that really was her I saw gettin' bounced outta Takanada's?"

"More than likely."

"Heh, I'm gonna get to bust her ass over this one."

"How is that?" Yoko purrs dangerously. He only receives an intimidating look back and a straightening of the cat demon's spine.

"I am her commanding officer on the grounds of my school. My students and fighters are not allowed to drink unless given explicit permission, and since I am officially her trainer and teacher, that means I get to put her through hell when I get her on that field."

"Oh, goody-goody," Aislin grumbles, walking up in one of her winter kimonos. "Just what I need after a week like that. What in _hells_ possessed me to do that, I wonder."

"Probably that bit of fox in you, Aisuhana-chan," Yoko teases, and pokes her nose. Big mistake. In one mercurial motion those small but very white teeth latch onto his finger and bite down hard enough to draw a bit of blood. Growling, he tugs for possession of the offending finger but is denied by the also-growling female attached to the other end of it.

"Did you poke her or something, baka kitsune?" Hiei questions amusedly as he walks out of the kitchen, clean and dressed in his borrowed finery. "I should think you'd know better by now."

"You'd think," grits the fox as he tugs again for the return of his finger. "Gimme, Aisuhana." The growl takes on a playful edge and Aislin tugs back, grinning around the bit of tanned flesh.

"Uh-uh."

"Gimme."

"Uh-uh!"

"Drop it."

"Grr," she laughs, playful enough now to lick at the blood trickling over her lower lip. "Mm."

"Perverted ice-fox," Hiei chuckles, and goes back into the kitchen to raid the icebox. Mizu just shakes his head and turns around.

"If you ever feel like getting the most out of what you paid me, try to get to the grounds today." A cheerful wave is his response and he leaves, shutting the door behind him. Once again in relative privacy, Yoko bends down until his eyes are level with the grinning koorime.

"I am going to count to three, and if I don't have my finger back I'm going to lick your nose." Eyes widening in mock dismay, she shakes her head again. Purposefully misinterpreting that headshake as an I-ain't-letting-go, he just beams at her and tugs once again on his abused digit. "One. Two. Three." And before she has a chance to release him he darts his chin forward and lightly swipes his tongue over the tip of her nose. She lets go in a flash and starts swiping at her nose with her thumb.

"Ack! Kurama germs!" Aislin cries and runs for the kitchen. "Help, I need the disinfectant!"

"Sorry," Yoko hears, "but we ran out. I guess you're just gonna turn into a pain in the ass like he is. Oh, wait, you already are." Laughing, the silver fox stumbles to the kitchen and collapses at the tiny table, grinning at the two small beings verbally sparring as they make breakfast for three.

==================================================================================

Onna: woman

Nani: What (question)

Dare wa: Who are you?

Kisama: Bastard

Ikeike: Bitch


	4. Chapter Four

Inugurlz: Thank you very much, and I'm glad I haven't confused you. As for the odd mix of serious/humor, it's why I left the genre as general. It gets too mixed up to be classified. :)

L33tnoran3ko: They both call each other Mirror because they are alike in almost everything--the exceptions including gender and primary element. And the story will get to Yusuke in about three/four chapters, I think. Just be patient. :)

Gourry-Gabriev610: 'proportions' ;P

Winter's Rose, Chapter Four

===============================================================================================================================

_Hiei left not too long after that, claiming that the growing heat between Yoko and I was making him itch and he needed to leave before he turned as' sickeningly domestic' as we seemed to have done. I still didn't quite understand what was happening to the soul of--if not ice; then very cold water--that I had been trying to build for the past century or two since Hiei had left the first time. It seemed to have disappeared, and I found myself beginning to fall in love with the arrogant and strangely gentle thief that had managed to steal his way past my inner walls to my heart. In the first year alone in our new relationship, I went to more bar-crawls and bacchanals than I had gone to in my entire life, and I was actually enjoying myself. I even gave Yoko my actual name about six months after I bit him, and until the very last day we were together he wore the scar I left like a promise ring and called me aisuhana as his pet name for me. But I get ahead of myself in my old age. Heh. Old age. Does such a thing truly occur to the demon-blooded? Old as I am, I still look no older than a very young sixteen, and I have no idea how Hiei looks nowadays. The only thing that has really changed is my attitude towards existence._

_ Back in my younger days--don't I sound like a granny at the fireplace!--I couldn't give a flip for anyone else besides Hiei, really. But as I grew older, and I like to think wiser, I stopped being such a little selfish brat and started paying attention. I suppose one could say that I grew a conscience. My targets for thievery grew more picky, and started to focus on those who made a profit on the poor or those unable to defend themselves. Women. Children. The hopeless causes like Mizu--I mean, _Merc Guild Master_ Mizu. I became their defender while still indulging in my hobby and livelihood of thieving._

_ And after two centuries, after I had moved from Pridesholt that had once been Baggit's Town and into my own complex of caves in the lair of Yoko Kurama, I suppose that's what got me caught. I don't have too many memories myself of what happened at that time--I've lifted from the minds of Koenma and Yoko the events from their points of view to supplement what I remember. Though if you ever meet either of them don't mention this little detail; they don't know I read their minds--but what I do remember I did not like in the least._

_ It happened when I was in a vault belonging to a particularly powerful ambassador of Koenma, one that I knew was corrupt and unchecked. I was doing it for a family not far from the Lair, an honest, dirt-poor family that had chosen against all reason to farm out in the middle of nowhere. What made me want to help them was the fact that they were succeeding at fighting back the carnivorous plants, the dangerous feral demons, and the power-sharks that would inevitably gather around such a weak morsel, carving out a decent sized territory to claim as their own under the protection of my Thief King. That, and the protective black-berry bushes he and I grew around the boundaries of the farm actually _liked_ them--they didn't try to hack away troublesome canes, they asked one of the other foxes or us to reason with it; they also tended the canes and turned their berries into some of the best desserts I had ever tasted. Damned sweet-tooth._

_ But they were slowly going broke buying new tools to replace worn or broken ones and new seeds to replace the ones that the pests of this world kept eating. So I had decided, in secret, to raid this vault and steal a few things to help pay for expenses in hopes that this rare glimmer of decency wouldn't have to leave. And that is where I made my mistake._

======================================================

The silence of a warm summer's night is broken by the klaxons of alarms screaming that someone is here that should not be, bringing the compound to sudden life and flooding the area with brilliant lights and rei detectors.

A blur of motion streaks past the authorities and guardsmen swarming the vault of one Ambassador Sokkenai, only to be tackled by several and wrestled bodily to the ground, resolving into one slender female dressed in dark grays with pure-white hair accented by two wine-colored streaks. Kicking, biting, and shrewd use of several ice weapons gains her temporary freedom, but that is abruptly curtailed by the arrival of several more strong fighters and one lone human that practically shouts 'professional' without saying a word.

It is the human that corners her and brings her struggling to the ground after a ferocious battle, locking power-dampening cuffs around her wrists and ankles, a special collar around her neck. When the last is snapped in place, she lets out one heart-rending howl and collapses, knocked out by the sudden sealing of her energy and powers.

"Kami's sake," the human man pants as he slings her over his shoulder with care and staggers towards the main police force, "if I ever have to fight this girl again Koenma's gonna get a piece of my mind. Little wildcat!"

_/Fox,/ _ a voice whispers at the edge of his thoughts. _ /Not just a cat, a fox./ _

"Awake already, eh, Whiteout? You really _are_ a piece of work. Didn't think I'd catch you in a million years."

_/First time for everything, I suppose,/ _ is the weak reply, and the voice falls silent until the human stands in front of a teenager with the letters 'Jr' on his forehead and a blue binky in his mouth.

Grinning triumphantly, the man turns so that the teen can get a good look at the face of the captive. "Koenma-sama, I'd like to present the Whiteout, grand-master thief and burglar extraordinare. Whiteout, this is Koenma-sama, Prince and pro-tem Ruler of the Spirit World and this part of the Demon World."

"I know who he is, idiot," she mumbles, pulling away as best she can when Koenma reaches to tilt her chin up. "And he can go fuck off for all I care."

"Pretty confident for someone who can't use her rei or weapons," Koenma says softly, a trace of steel beneath the silk of his voice. Her reply to that? A glob of mucus on his shiny shoes and a raucous bark of laughter.

"One way or another, toddler, you aren't keeping me! I'll freeze the entire world for a decade before you can execute me, I swear it." Sighing, Koenma gestures and the man walks off, making sure to bounce particularly hard with every step. With a bloodthirsty grin she times the bounces and waits for the correct angle and moment to present themselves. Which of course, they do.

The Spirit Detective howls in pain when her sharp fangs connect with his side and rip away a piece of fabric and his hide, causing him to drop her in order to clap both hands to his brand-new injury. Spitting out the wad of flesh and cloth, Aislin grins with his blood running down her chin and takes off a second time, aiming for the dark sanctuary of the forest just beyond the compound. Bouncing against her hip is a bulging pouch that would be jingling if is wasn't so full, a present she fully intends to get to its new owners.

"Crap! Even without powers she's fast as an oiled mink!" the Spirit Detective curses as he takes off in pursuit, praying that he doesn't lose her in the darkness.

"What's the matter, Detective?" she calls mockingly from many yards ahead, "Can't keep up with your quarry?"

"Get back here, Whiteout!"

"Several pairs of words, detective: you suck, fuck off, and fuck you! And my personal favorite: Bite me!"

_I'd probably be poisoned if I bit _you_, snake-eater,_ the man thinks angrily as he stretches his resources to the limit just to keep the fleet woman ahead of him in sight. With all the grace of a gymnast she bounds from tree to tree, laughing occasionally at his comparative clumsiness in the darkness beneath the trees. She leaps over a thick hedge of high blackberry canes, the tiring man never noticing the heavy pouch being dropped into the deepest part of the brambles, too busy just trying to keep up.

She laughs as she leaps over the other boundary hedge, only to smack into what feels like several feet of solid steel. "Owww…Who would put a damn tank in the middle of…" She breaks off and looks up at several feet of very tired, very pissed Spirit Detective, his gold aura sparking red and wrapping him in a shroud of light. "Well, I'll be damned," she says in a literal tone of voice as his fist plummets onto her skull.

====

Several hours later, Koenma wearily strides up to the newly-bandaged Spirit Detective standing guard outside a very heavy door. "Any luck?" he asks quietly, aware that even through the metal and the various power-muffling devices and restraints the prisoner beyond could probably hear them.

"She won't say a damn word about anything except a list of our various dubious pedigrees, Koenma-sama. I _know_ I didn't scramble her brains with that last blow; I've hit eggs harder than that and they didn't crack." A muffled shout is barely heard on this side of the door, and the child-ruler--in his actual form that, any way you look at, is babyish--cocks his head to one side in query.

"Any idea what that was?" The black-haired man rubs his face with one hand in exhaustion.

"Sir, if it's what I think it is, you don't want to know." The voice turns singsong, goes on for a couple of minutes, and then stops. Then the banging begins. Very heavy banging, as of feet getting embedded into rock wall. The singsong resumes, keeping time by the bangs, and an ogre with blue skin and a tiger-print loincloth sprints up with a near panicked expression.

"Koenma, sir! She's actually stressing the restraints to their limit! I don't know how much longer we can hold her, sir!"

"Damn it all, this facility is supposed to be equipped with restraints capable of holding a double-S-Class demon! One A-class koorime shouldn't be this much trouble!" A serious of loud and grim-sounding cracks and explosions can be heard from the other side of the wall, the faint sound of fabric ripping, and then a moment or two of alarmed silence.

Even through the wall and reinforced titanium door the captive's cursing is audible, at least at first. Koenma puzzles at to why the swearing would be getting weaker, and then remembers one very important piece of information his recently-installed information-network had given him. He whirls to the Detective and pins him with a dangerous look.

"What temperature is that room set at?"

"I don't know," the man replied in startlement, "somewhere around sixty degrees?" Koenma goes pale and the binky threatens to drop from nerveless lips.

"For heaven's sake get her out of there! That temperature will _kill her!_"

====

It is nearly a week later by the time Koenma can return to the case of Aislin Moors, aka Whiteout, and he is horrified by what he encounters when he enters the iced-down cell where she had been under questioning. Four guardsmen lie dead in various positions, nary a scratch on them, thin trickles of blood leaking from their ears, eyes wide in shock at the suddenness of their collective demise. Huddled in one corner, hissing and spitting like a cornered cat--or fox--is a severely battered koorime female with once snow-white hair now begrimed and filthy.

The child-ruler claps his hands over his ears at the furious sounds the female makes, a new range of subsonics threatening to burst his eardrums and leave him to the same fate as these four fools. Backing quickly from the cell, he poofs into teenage form and latches onto a passing ogre with a look of fury on his face.

"Who gave the authorization for the use of torturing methods on Moors?" he demands in a cold, cold voice devoid of anything but that chilly bite. The ogre, properly terrified at the uncharacteristic display of fury, quickly babbles something about a courier arriving yesterday with revised orders covering the interrogation of one Aislin Moors.

"She was supposed to be interrogated, not _inqusitioned_!" Koenma yells at the tops of his lungs. "We now have an unstable A-class apparition with newly discovered subharmonics manipulation cowering like a whipped dog in that cell with four of my men dead! I want to know who gave those orders and why, and I want to know yesterday! Understand me??"

"Yes, sir, Koenma, sir!!" the ogre yelps, saluting and sprinting off down the hallway. Slumping against the door, Koenma peers through the special acrylic viewplate at the wild creature hesitantly beginning to investigate the still bodies of her new cellmates with a proprietary air.

====

"Here, kitty kitty," Koenma's best psychic, the wind-apparition named Shikyo, coos to the frightened and over-stressed ball of puffed white fluff that is all that is visible of the abused koorime. A rising growl emanates from beneath the table, her current hiding place, a trace of her newly discovered subharmonics ability making that growl much more effective as a deterrent that it would normally be.

It is two hours after Koenma's discovery of the unauthorized abuse of Aislin, and those two hours have been spent in trying to calm her down enough to possibly tranquilize her and transport her to a rehabilitation facility. No dice. No matter how many soothing mind-waves Shikyo sends at Aislin, every overture of friendship has been rejected with an accompaniment of voice or teeth. The Spirit Detective, Yuuki, is currently getting his various new bite marks treated down at the hospital wing.

"Lord Koenma, none of my abilities seem to work on the koorime woman," Shikyo says softly, all of her attention trained on the pale scraped hand reaching hesitantly towards a plate of cooked and cooled meat chunks set just beyond Aislin's range of motion that would keep her under the low table. The few people in the room hold their breaths when that white head, hair still fluffed but not so much as before, pops into view, the reaching hand falling just short of her desired prize. "Her mind is completely blank of anything but the most base of instincts."

Startled, wide turquoise eyes regard them over the meat bits, and Aislin catches sight of Koenma. Instantly she goes from frightened feline to territorial wolf, baring her teeth over her prize and once more beginning to growl.

"Mine!" she snarls in a voice hoarse from screaming. "Mine!"

"Yours," the child-ruler agrees calmly. "All yours."

"Mine?" she says again experimentally, looking over at the other tidbits and toys that had been offered as possible lures and which now littered the floor around the table. The painful sound waves are nearly absent in her one spoken word, but no one mistakes the danger of the rest of her. Even with the numerous restraints that she hadn't been able to chew off, it didn't mean that she wouldn't be able to use some of her abilities. "Mine."

"Yours." More confidently, she slips up to Koenma on all fours and sticks her face directly in front of his, studying him carefully with both eyes and nose, which wrinkles after a few quick sniffs.

"Pah! Not mine!" And she stalks back over to the meat bits and hauls it back under the table.

"That was interesting," Koenma observes shakily. "Now what, Shikyo?"

===

She waits until they're gone before emerging once more from the makeshift den she'd made underneath the thing they call a 'table', a predatory grin spreading across her bruised face and baring long canines. In all their excitement over trapping her, they'd forgotten to lock the door--she'd never heard the knob-thing click. It is a matter of seconds to finish chewing off the rest of the weird furs they'd strapped on her somehow, ignoring the buckles and straps that stink of danger when she sniffs at them and wriggling free of the whole lot. A few luxurious stretches and she pads on her back legs to the door, listening with all her might to whatever lies beyond. Nothing. Pure silence.

That grin gets a little bigger and she reaches for the knob, batting at it carefully to make it turn like she'd seen them make it. A faint click and the door swings open, the clever ice-fox slipping through the thin opening and into the hallway beyond.

She darts back inside a second later, shivering and curling her lip in a silent snarl, regarding the door with utter disgust. It's so cold beyond that door that she wouldn't survive for more than a few minutes, and what's left of her higher thought processes wonders at how her captors can walk so freely beyond. Meh. Now that the odd furs are gone, she can taste her own strength and that gives her an idea. If her own skin isn't enough to protect her from the cold, she'd just have to grow her own fur. Besides, this form is nearly useless for sneaking around in, anyway--too many hurts to move properly as she knows it can.

A few seconds later she regards her new body in pleasure, flicking her numerous tails and letting new muscles roll under heavy white fur. She pricks her rounded ears towards the door again and sniffs, hearing and smelling no one there or coming, and slips out again in silence.

Strolling down the hallway with the appearance of having somewhere very important to go to, the oversized Arctic fox keeps her eyes, ears, and nose scanning for trouble or danger. The sounds of footsteps reaches her and she leaps upwards, claws extended. Koenma and several ogres pass beneath her, deep in discussion and never noticing the large fox clinging like a spider to the ceiling. Deciding that the ceiling makes a perfectly good walkway, she continues traveling, always following the fresher currents of air passing through the long corridors towards the exit.

The klaxon of alarms going off right next to her ear makes her jolt and flatten herself to the ceiling, fur bushed out and teeth bared. Realizing that the alpha-kit must've noticed her no longer in her lair, she drops to the ground and takes off in a dead run. Ogres shout and drop papers on top of her when she eels past them in her sprint, people making grabs for her find themselves with bloody holes in their hides to deter them from following in pursuit, and the wisest choose to just get out of her way.

A man blocks her path when she finally locates an exit door, arms crossed over his chest and white as her own fur from bandages. Scowling, he tells the running fox, "Forget it, Whiteout. You ain't gettin' past me."

With a fierce gape-grin she proves him wrong, launching herself at such speed that her feet impact his chest before he has a chance to react and guard, using the momentum to bounce off and onto the door at full speed. With a scream of abuse, the hinges snap and she bolts for the freedom beyond, howling gleefully when she looks over her shoulder to find the trapper sprawled on the ground and coughing to get the breath back into his lungs.

Posing artfully on a firm cloud-hill, she grins back at the startled male before racing down the other side, heading for the scent of water and complete escape.

Less than fifteen minutes later she stops dead in her tracks, staring in dismay at the very long drop to the landscape below. Memories surface in her mind and she tilts her head to capture them better. This is the escarpment for the Spirit World Palace, they tell her. Below is the main part of Spirit World and the River Styx, which is heavily guarded because of all the spirits that gather there on the far bank.

_Well,_ the fox thinks to herself, _then I'm just going to have to make sure I don't go there. _Remembering her old shape, another thought comes to mind, this one regarding something she can do to get down without killing herself. Admitting that she is not full-blooded fox is her first step, and the second is calling on a specific thread of her varied bloodline.

The sounds of pursuit get louder and stop suddenly, making her turn her head to look back. Several ogres, the trapper, and the alpha-kit stand there, gaping at her new appearance.

"Bye-bye," she tells them coldly, and leaps off the edge. Ice forms a slide beneath her feet, helping her to gain speed outwards from the cliff. An involuntary yowl of exhilaration breaks from her lungs at the strength of the wind rushing past her, and then the feeling of freefall when the ice ends. After savoring the feeling for a second or two more, the massive white wings sprouting from her shoulders and armored in heavy scales snap open, catching their own winds and carrying her safely above the possibly dangerous terrain and the blue ribbon of the Styx far, far below. Ahead of her gleams a portal, the energy signatures labeling it as a path for the Death-vixens the alpha-kit has working for him, and one to the Demon World at that. _How terribly convenient,_ Aislin thinks as she flies through.

===

Yoko collapses into a tavern-booth in a town nearly fifty miles north from his thieves'-lair, tired, sore, and deathly afraid for his beloved. Kuronue had come in nearly two months ago, full of reports on Aislin's capture by Koenma and his latest Spirit Detective, the human Yuuki Mayami. His informants had then told him a week later that a kitsune had been seen fleeing from the child-king's palace prisons, missing several lines of fur over her right shoulder.

That last bit of information, and the fact that the subspecies of the kitsune had been Arctic fox, told him exactly who that escapee had been. Aislin has a small complex scar on her right shoulderblade, something he has been in the position to know, that was from the impact of a trap they'd accidentally sprung during a heist. If she hadn't pushed him out of the way, the thin wires would have taken his head instead of a few pieces of her shoulder and heavy coat. As it was, a starburst-like scar had been carved into her skin and stayed there.

The fact that she had escaped had assuaged some of his worry, but not much of it. For Aislin to use an alternate form, even one so natural as her fox-form, meant that she had to have been in serious pain and unable to move much in her real body. The fact that she hadn't sent any kind of word to him in all this time was the reason he had gone looking for her.

And so, here he sits, waiting for some bit of useful information to reach his questing ears while he sips at the half-decent brew the rather cute waitress had served him. He'd tracked some rumors to this general area, far from his territory, that told of a new demon that had taken up residence by a river near here. No real value, except that the rumors had said it was some kind of ice demon. And ice demon could equal Aislin.

As the sun sets his patience--what's left of it after two months of waiting--is rewarded by two gossiping demons in the next booth over.

"Hey, didja hear 'bout that new demon tha's taken o'er Grip's ol' territory?" the blood demon asks his buddy, a pallid darkness demon, poking him roughly in the shoulder.

"Who ain't?" comes the rough reply. "I ain't just heerd abou' it, I seen it."

"Really?" the blood demon says excitedly. "Was it as deadly as they say it is?"

"Dunno," the darkness demon replies. "I just saw it drinkin' some water at the river. Rumors ain't lying--that hasta be the biggest white fox I ever seen."

"Huh." The blood demon sits back and takes a swig of his drink. "Scuttlebutt says this one's mighty picky about who it goes after. My cousin's sister walked right on through without so much as seein' it, but that liddle bandit-gang got pretty chewed up when they tried passin' through. That teacher for the kids got 'em lost on a field-trip last week, and keeps tellin' how it just showed up and led 'em out to the road. Guess it's pretty…wha's the word I'm lookin' fer? Like those ol' human knights, yanno?"

"Chivalrous," Yoko tells them, getting to his feet and laying a copper down on the table to pay for his ale. The blood demon nods enthusiastically.

"Yah, yah, tha's it! Chivalrous! Real chivalrous, this new demon is." The thief-king simply leans against the divider to his booth and theirs and gives them a patient smile, speaking to the darkness demon quite politely.

"Where did you say you saw the kitsune again?" The demon shrugs and gestures towards the north-east.

"Saw 'em 'bout ten miles that-away, along the river. Careful, though. It ain't got the calmest of tempers."

"If it's who I hope it is, I know very well what her temper is like," Yoko mutters to himself as he nods his thanks and leaves. "Aislin, what are you _doing_?"

Ten miles later, he still doesn't have his answer, and all the traveling and worry is taking its toll. There's no sign of the rumored demon, not so much as a whiff, and he is utterly exhausted. The last time he'd gotten more than two hours sleep was the night she'd disappeared and he kept forgetting to eat despite having had Kuronue nagging at him every five minutes when he'd been at home. So, heart-sick, weak, and worn he stumbles over to a nearby tree, heaves himself onto a solid branch, and wraps the memory of Aislin around him as oblivion claims him completely.

He wakes up three hours later according to the moon, the scream that woke him still tingling along his spine. Another scream, this one male and even more terrified than the first, echoes across the forest. Somewhat recharged, Yoko swings from his branch and takes off running towards the sound. Two bramble-thickets and a strangle-vine later he bursts into a clearing and stares.

A female cat demon lies huddled on the ground, astonishment and fear making her tail-fur fluff on end while a short distance away a ball of white fur and bloody flesh roils in close combat. Angry snarls nearly drown out the terrified shrieks of a male in extreme pain, and it becomes clear that the fight is less than combat and more along the lines of a male trying to escape and not being allowed.

"Are you all right?" Yoko asks the neko-girl quietly, coming up alongside her and crouching down. Startled emerald eyes jerk to look at him, but relax when he offers her no violence.

"Yes, I'm fine. I'm not so sure about my would-be lover, though."

"Was it a mutual tryst?"

"Hell, _no_," the cat-girl snaps. "I was walking home and he jumped me!"

"Ah. That explains that." No need to clarify just what he means. "Think he's had enough?"

"Prob'ly. First thing she did was bite his piece off."

"Vindictive little vixen, yes, she is," Yoko agrees, and stands up while putting his fingers to his mouth. One good, piercing whistle stops the fight, the oversized Arctic Fox regarding him with surprised turquoise eyes while the mauled wolf demon makes good his escape, running off with his tail literally between his legs. Before Yoko can do anything else the kitsune vanishes, and a moment later sixty pounds of living stole plops onto his shoulders and dangles legs on either side of his neck.

"Mine," a familiar voice, rusty with disuse, purrs in his ear. Eight tails lazily brush against his arm, and a cool tongue happily swipes against his cheek.

"I was praying it was you, Aislin. Where the hell have you been?" Yoko demands, responding to the kiss by stroking the snowy paw draped down his front.

"Here. My territory?" Her uncertainty turns the statement to a question, and he can feel her pressing herself against him even further. "Not mad? Please?"

"Aisuhana, why would I be mad? I was just worried, that's all. You've been gone for a while." He pats the paw gently before looking over at the relieved cat-girl. "Sorry, but I'm going to be taking your defender back home, if she lets me. I've got a whole band of thieves worrying about how many pieces she might be in."

"Thank you very much for saving me, honored kitsune," the girl replies, bowing deeply before trotting off, presumably in the direction of home. The silver fox heaves a huge sigh of relief before reaching up and pulling the calmed Aislin off and then setting her gently down.

"Aislin, are you okay?"

"Fine. No hurts." Concern furrows the male kitsune's forehead and he crouches down to be on eyelevel.

"Aislin, I want you to say a full, complete sentence telling me exactly how you got here." She fidgets before admitting, "Can't." "Why not?"

"Forgot words."

"How did you get like this, koishii?"

" Sokkenai."

"Sokkenai did this to you?"

"Gave orders. Alpha-kit not know. Got mad when found me." _Alpha-kit? Oh, Koenma._

"What did those orders say?"

A shrug. "Alpha-kit told ogre, 'interrogation, not inquisition'." Yoko feels his blood go cold.

"Aislin, did they _torture_ you?" A growl, layered with a range of subsonic tones, is his answer. Wincing, he claps his hands over his ears and takes several very fast stumbling steps backwards. Instantly the growl stops and a cool body presses against his leg, vibrating with remorse.

"Sorry."

"Aislin, change back. I can't do what I want to do with you in that form."

"Forgot how." Taking a deep breath to keep himself from screaming in frustration, he again crouches down.

"You can feel your power?"

She looks thoughtful and then pleased with herself. "Power? Yes, power."

"Reach for it, and give it a twist, picturing your two-legged form. With good, warm clothes." Cocking her head to one side, Aislin shuts her eyes and follows his directions. A few moments later, Aislin crouches there in her human form, blinking as her vision, nose, and hearing readjust themselves, thin body clad in white wool from neck to toes. Instantly Yoko scoops her off her feet and wraps his arms around her in a fierce hug, lips finding hers in an equally fierce and relieved kiss. She returns them both with feeling until they both have to stop and take an unwilling breath, still wrapped up in each other.

"Gods, but I missed you," Yoko breathes, setting her down but not letting go and shaking her lightly. "Don't _ever_ scare me like that again! I was worried sick about you!"

"Not my fault," Aislin mutters rebelliously. "Stupid Detective."

"Not just his fault, aisuhana. You're the one who snuck off without any backup of any kind! You _know_ you were supposed to let someone know you were going on a heist. How could you just run off like that?"

"Don't have words," she replies guiltily. "Need words." He scoops her up again, despite her wordless protest that she could walk, and sets off for home with a much lighter step than what he came here with.

"Then we'll find someone who can give you yourself back."

=============================================================================================================================

In case you're worried, nothing happened besides a thorough beating. Not even ogres under orders would be THAT stupid…I think.

Shikyo: Death

Yuuki: (from several) courage, bravery

Neko: cat

Koishii: beloved


	5. Chapter Five

Winter's Rose, Chapter Five

==================================================================================

_She Dreams. Asleep in her room back at the Lair, Aislin's soul takes flight from its home and wings its way into nothingness. Back into the Void, melding together with a small bead of white-threaded wine. Upon the melding a snow-white fox unfurls and looks around expectantly. When nothing happens, the fox simply shrugs and lies down to roll, silvery-white sparkles flying up into a glittering cloud that coats her fur and makes it shimmer in the unidirectional light._

_ With a laugh she takes off running in a completely random direction, puffs of the silver glitter swirling up at every step, purposefully tripping to tumble into a drift of the stuff that appears the second before she whumps into it. Giggling, she flounders her way out of the drift and shakes herself out, sparkles flying everywhere to coat a floor seemingly made of black glass that was invisible against the star-spangled emptiness._

_ Grinning playfully, she sits down and singsongs, "Hiei, Hiei, come to me, on my count of one two three!" Once again, she looks around her expectantly and is disappointed. "Phooey. I thought that'd work for sure."_

_ "Who's to say it didn't?" a mildly annoyed voice says from behind her. Squeaking, she jumps straight 'up' and floats there, twisting to look down and find once more the massive violet-black dragon with the same eyes as her friend. Around them, the taste/scents of Hiei's name--campfire smoke, seasoned wood and sharp herbs, summer's evenings by a river, the metallic flavor of swords--swirl briefly before fading._

_"Oh. It did work. Hello, Hiei."_

_"Baka kitsune," he replies affectionately. "Why'd you summon me?"_

_"I need your help. I got caught by Koenma and one of his ambassadors--"_

_"Sokkenai?" Bitter apples, thornroot, vinegar on ice._

_ "The same--issued orders to have me inqusitioned instead of simply interrogated. Koenma didn't find out until after it was too late." The scent of paper, ink, and baby powder._

_"Is there a point to this?"_

_"I'm getting there. Show some patience."_

_"Sorry. Ran out last year and haven't gotten the new shipment in."_

_ Her lips pull back in an exasperated smile. "Wise-ass. Anyway, here I am myself. But when I go back, I'll be feral again. The ogres who did this _broke_ me, Hiei. I don't have full control of myself or my mind--I'm simply a very intelligent animal."_

_"Are you still in Koenma's jail?"_

_"I'm not. And I killed the four who did this to me."_

_"Really? How? The restraints they put on should have nullified everything and kept you from fighting."_

_ "Restraints only work on an existing ability that is there when they put said restriction on. I discovered subsonics near the end of my torture session."_

_"Not sooner?"_

_"It ended because I killed them, obviously."_

_ "Ah. Well, I'm afraid I can't help you either way, Aislin. I've never done anything to repair damage done--usually I'm the one inflicting it. All I can do is suggest that you try and take this self with you when you wake up again." Her name lingers after he finishes speaking; snowcones and plain ice, hearthfire, wool, fox musk and fur, winter's clean crispness, the sharp taste of mint and rosemary._

_"A worthwhile suggestion, at the least," she sighs, nodding in thanks._

_ "Your welcome." The dragon settles back on his haunches like an oversized cat, tilting his body so that he and she are level, and smiles contentedly. "So. How are you and your fox getting along, if I dare ask?"_

_ A wicked smile blooms. "You'd be itchy within the day. We were even discussing a family before I got caught, about two months ago."_

_"So that was you I kept hearing about--the noble ice demon."_

_"Probably. Old habits die hard, and I'm still defending the weak." She shrugs carelessly, flicking one or two of her tails._

_"It's going to get you killed one of these days," he warns her, and she shrugs again._

_ "Nonsense. I'm nearly an S-class demon now. Only ones that can kill me now are you and Yoko, and that's because you're the only two who could catch me off guard with something like that."_

_The dragon sighs in resignation and shakes his massive head. "Overconfidence killed the kitsune, you know."_

_ She pins him with a flat stare. "Hiei, I know very well of my mortality concerning sharp and/or blunt objects. I had a very potent reminder last month. I'll be careful, I promise. I have to be, since he's not careful enough for my tastes."_

_Another sigh, this one rather fond. "If he wasn't taken…"_

_"But he is," she says possessively. "All mine, so go and find yourself another thief-king to cuddle."_

_ "All right, all right, snowflake," he laughs, holding one foreclaw up in a mock-defense gesture. "I promise, I won't chase after Yoko as long as you are alive, nor will I do anything to help you along towards death. Deal?"_

_ Considering, she tilts her head to the side and taste/smells her beloved's name. "Yoko," she says finally, putting another layer onto the name--warmth and sunbeams on top of crisp herbs, the scent of gold and precious jewels, amber, and roses. The dragon considers the new addition, and speaks the name again, wiping out the revised version and making a whole new one. Apples, _roses and _wildflowers, blood and gold, crisp plants, dried grass and sun-warm trees; amber and faint fox musk, precious things, and a trace of starlit nights under rich earth and thick fur._

_Nodding in agreement at the new version, Aislin looks over at Hiei, who then repeats the promise. "Deal."_

_Waving his foreclaws at her in a shooing gesture, Hiei tells her, "Now scoot before we both burn out."_

_"Jya ne, porcupine head."_

_ "Jya ne, snowflake." The dragon fades away. Rising to her feet, Aislin folds herself away back into the bead, separating herself from her anchor and arrowing back to herself, willing her full self to accompany her back into her shell. With the faintest of impacts, she drops into the half-starved, pale-skinned form lying motionless under a few furs, her lodestone and tether the faintly-glimmering kitsune asleep beside her._

===

She wakes up sometime around six am, according to her internal clock, feeling very much herself and entertaining thoughts of Sokkenai being skewered and roasted over a flame fueled by bits of his mansion. Contemplating the future validity of the image, she rises from the furs and looks over at the kitsune sitting against the wall, chin on his bare chest and face hidden by the long curtain of silver hair. His hands are limp in his lap, and she fights down the irrational urge to bite another finger.

Grinning at _that_ pleasant mental image, she crouches down in front of him and leans forward, bracing her weight on her fingertips and leisurely licking a wet path from his navel to his chin before fastening her lips to his in a light kiss. She breaks away as he begins to stir, a lazy smile on his face, reaching out to pull her closer without bothering to finish waking up first.

"Missed me," she teases, and his eyes fly open to stare at her in shock. "Go-ood morning, koishii. Sleep well?"

"Back with me already?" he asks her in disbelief, the back of his fingers brushing a lock of hair away from her cheek. "I only got you here last night, and here you sit, restored."

"All it took was a trip to the Void, and a chat with an old friend." Quite contentedly, she eases herself down beside him and buries her nose in his long hair, inhaling deeply to fill her lungs with his comforting scent.

"Then why didn't you go sooner?"

An enigmatic shrug. "I didn't have a focal point or lodestone to tether me with my body until now. If I'd gone, I wouldn't have come back 'cause I wouldn't have been able to find my body."

His brow furrows in confusion while his arm snakes around her and pulls her into his lap. "Lodestone? Tether?"

"Some way to let me know where my body was. I gave my regular lodestone to you, and made you into my new one." When his expression doesn't clear, she reaches up and brushes away the hair at the base of one long, furry ear. The Tear of the Rose gleams there, transformed into an earring by Aislin's careful hands and given to the fox last century for an anniversary gift. "This was my first lodestone. It's one of the reasons why I wanted it back in the first place. When I gave it to you, _you_ became my new lodestone, because there hasn't been a night that you haven't laid beside me since I gave into you. Barring the last two months, of course."

Touched, Yoko captures her upraised hand and brings it to his lips, grazing them against her knuckles and glancing up with a heated smile. "Whoever said you were not poetic needs to have his tongue ripped out, beloved."

"You want it for a present?" she asks him seriously. "It's somewhere in my collection." He regards her with surprise, uncertain as to whether or not she's joking. When he realizes that she is entirely serious, his sensual mouth curves upwards into another smile, this one decidedly hungry.

"Beloved, I am amazed once again at your efficiency." She wrinkles her nose at him, amused.

"As you should be," the koorime replies, tangling her fingers in the long silver tresses and pulling his face down into another kiss. They are just about to start making up for lost time when someone discreetly clears their throat from the curtained doorway, completely ruining the mood and making the pair sigh in resignation. They both look up to find a rather sheepish Kuronue standing there, eyes politely averted towards the ceiling, a humorous smile baring white fangs.

"Begging your pardon, oh great leader, but the crew is wondering how our other great leader is faring. I was 'volunteered' to request your presence in the mess-hall."

"Okay, Kuro-kun," Aislin laughs, rising to her feet to allow Yoko to do the same. "We'll be there as soon as we freshen up a bit. Two months running wild has not been good for my hygiene, and this stubborn fox probably hasn't been much better." Kuronue laughs while his leader protests his innocence, Aislin grabbing the much taller fox by the wrist and hauling him towards her bathing room. "Be out in a few minutes, Kuro-kun!"

"Take your time!" Kuronue laughs. "I know I would!"

"Lech!" Yoko calls back mockingly, making the bat demon laugh harder.

"With a body like yours, Yoko? Oh, most definitely!"

===

_Approximately a month later:_

Koenma gapes at the devastation before him in disbelief, awed by the sheer scope of the destruction and the thoroughness with which it was accomplished. "Five hours," Yuuki mutters beside him, reading from the report turned in this morning. "It took only five hours to reduce a mansion of over thirty bedrooms plus accoutrements to utter rubble. Not to mention that Ambassador Sokkenai is nowhere to be found, and his servants don't seem to mind his absence at all. Something doesn't smell right, Koenma-sama."

"You're telling me?" Koenma sighs back, sucking pensively on the binky that seems to never leave his mouth. "I just received confirmation that Sokkenai was the one who issued the orders to have Moors tortured." Yuuki sucks in his breath at this new revelation, staring down at his employer with wide eyes.

"_Sokkenai_?"

"Right," another voice pipes from a nearby tree. "Sokkenai did it all." Jumping in fright, the two males look up to find Aislin seated on a very high treebranch, looking down at them with cold, emotionless eyes. "Which is why I exacted retribution on him this morning."

"Back to your old self, I see," grumbles Yuuki, earning him a brief smile from the dangerous thief.

"No thanks to you, yes. And for your information, Koenma, Ambassador Sokkenai was greedy, manipulative, and cruel, forcing his so-called employees to work extremely long hours for low food and low pay. He also dabbled in sadism, extortion--" She breaks off when Yuuki leaps up and makes a grab for her, only to fail miserably and abruptly ending up facedown several inches deep in the ground with Aislin calmly seated on his back and continuing to count off the late Ambassador's crimes. "--hold still, you, I'm not finished. As I was saying; extortion, gambling, petty and grand larceny--that's stealing, you thick-headed human--destruction of private property, tax evasion, and several other nasty and unsavory habits. You're welcome."

And she's gone, leaving nothing but a couple of boot-prints on the human's back and one on his chest, visible when he pulls himself free and starts dusting himself off. Glaring up at the place she had been sitting, he says quite calmly to Koenma, "One of these days, sir, I'm going to do something about that sarcastic attitude of hers."

"Good luck," Koenma sighs, resigning himself to finding whatever is left--if anything--of Sokkenai and looking for a new Ambassador.

===

"Oy! Aislin-san! You got a letter!" The petite ice demon looks up from her jewelry-bench and smiles at the approaching lightning-wolf demon, a sealed envelope being waved around in his clawed hand. "Special delivery from one of our agents in Pridesholt."

"Pridesholt?" she repeats in disbelief, taking the letter and eyeing the elegant script of her name. "But Mizu would be the only one who would write, and he's too busy being a Merc Guild Council member to do so these days." It is now nearly a decade after Aislin's original capture, and everything has--for the most part--returned to the way it was before she'd been caught.

"Why're ya asking me? Open it already!" the young demon pipes, and is rewarded by an absentminded ruffling of his hair by Aislin.

"Nosy pup. Go ask Gre'ich if he's gotten lunch ready yet." Playfully saluting, the teenaged demon lopes off in the direction of the band's kitchen, ears flopping every which way along with his messy, untamed brindle hair. Shaking her head at the naiveté of youth, she flips the letter over and gasps at the sight of Koenma's seal pressed into the blue wax, biting her lower lip to keep herself silent.

Too late. With a quirk of his ears Yoko looks up from his game of poker with Kuronue and several others, concern spreading across his face. "Everything all right, koi?"

She flaps her hand at him, still staring at the seal, eyes wide in incredulity at the idea that Koenma would--and could--get a letter to her. Taking a deep breath, she breaks the seal on the letter and begins to read.

_"To Aislin and Yoko Kurama: You are formally invited to attend the funeral of Miyami Yuuki, slain on the Twenty-seventh of March, year Eighteen-hundred Twelve. The service will be held in Ningenkai, at the address below, on April Third. Attire is formal." _Below that, in neat handwriting, is a message from the child-king directly. _"Moors-san, this is not a trap. If you do choose to attend, no attempt will be made to capture you. I just thought you might want to attend the funeral of the only man to have ever arrested you. Koenma."_

"Yoko?" she calls, troubled, an inexplicable twinge of sorrow bringing a single tear to her eye, one that slides down and pings into a gem colored a cloudy medium blue. "You might want to come read this." Now seriously concerned, Yoko gets to his feet and nearly runs to her side, plucking the letter from her nerveless fingers and scanning over it quickly. His expressive ears droop slightly, and one hand find a comforting grip on her shoulder.

"Will you go?" he asks her softly, using his grip to lean her sideways against him. She allows the motion and leans there, head resting on his hip, eyes closed while she thinks. "For a human and the child-king's agent, he was a good man."

"He was, and an excellent adversary," she replies just as softly. Falling silent, she thinks longer while Yoko moves his free hand to slowly stroke the length of her hair, still scanning the invitation. "Yoko? What will the weather be like this Saturday?"

======================================================

__

It was the first and one of the only funerals that I have ever attended, and even now the memory stands clear against the passage of time. It was at a small church in France, but the church was absolutely beautiful in the early spring's morning light. Stained glass is something that doesn't last very long in Demon World, either because someone steals it or someone breaks it, but it filled the long windows of the church like tamed rainbows shattered into images of human saints and the Christian God.

It was also one of the rare times I've dressed formally, but for someone who was skilled enough to have caught me, however briefly, I was willing to put up with the discomfort of corset, stays, and all those blasted petticoats. The look of amazement on Koenma's face when Yoko and I walked up was almost worth the trip, amusingly enough.

======================================================

"Hello, Koenma," Aislin greets the ruler softly, a dark blue rose tucked over her ear, hair freshly cut for the occasion into a silken cap just past her ears despite the current fashion of large, elaborate powdered wigs. "You chose a lovely day for him, I'll give you that."

He snaps his mouth shut; for once the binky is nowhere in sight and it looks odd to see him in his teenaged form without it, and bows respectfully. "Moors-san. Glad you could make it. You, too, Yoko."

"Child-king," the fox returns calmly. He has deigned to use his rarely-seen human form, which looks much like his regular form, only without the ears, tail and claws, and his hair nearly black. The kneelength tresses are bound back into a long ponytail halfway down their length with a black satin ribbon, his body clad in a nobleman's suit of mourning. He glances down at his mate and a ghost of a smile flits across his features. "You must have respected him very much to come today, sweetheart."

"Not that I'll ever get to tell him that," she murmurs sadly. "I was hoping I'd at least get to have one more good fight before someone took him down." Eyes glittering, she glances up at Koenma. "You caught the kisama, right?"

"He was formally executed two days ago," Koenma replies quietly, and digs in his suit pocket, bringing up two small clip-earrings a moment later. "Here, these are for you two, in case you did come. They're translators, so you can understand and speak the local language."

"Thank you, Koenma-san. They'll be returned to you after the service." Aislin bows her head slightly as she takes them, handing one to Yoko and fastening the other on her left ear. Rubbing her fingertip over the small jewel, she activates it and turns to find Yoko has already followed her example. Koenma bows slightly and turns away.

"Come on. It's nearly time." Taking a deep breath, Aislin and Yoko fall into step behind him and he leads them up the flagstone path into the small church's airy interior, already filled with friends, family, and coworkers/opponents of the fallen Spirit Detective.

"Koenma, correct me if I'm mistaken, but wasn't Miyami-san Japanese?" Aislin queries in a murmur as they walk to their places near the front of the room.

"No, actually. That was the name he chose when he came back to this side of the Styx. His real name was Anthony Barbarac, and he was of the lesser nobility." Koenma murmurs back as they take their seats.

"He had a hell of a roundhouse for a nobleman," Aislin mutters to herself, rubbing her jaw at the memory. She could almost swear she heard a faint chuckle from behind her, but when she looks there is only a grieving row of faces, so she dismisses it as a passing fancy and turns forward again. Everyone who is not in tears falls silent when the preacher takes his place at the pulpit, and launches into a long-winded eulogy that really has nothing to do with the man lying in state in the coffin behind him, the koorime getting more and more disgusted with the fool every second.

_I knew this place was too perfect to be true. Such a fabulous beauty _would_ be run by an idiot._ Frowning quite hard, she practically glares at the preacher and sighs in relief when he winds down, giving everyone the signal that it is time for the more personal eulogies to be given.

The first to take the old human's place at the pulpit is a grim faced man that bears an uncanny resemblance to the passed Spirit Detective, and Aislin nearly swallows her tongue in shock at the sight. "My brother Anthony was a good man," the mourner declares calmly, looking out over the sea of faces with the air of someone quietly bleeding to death on the inside. "Though he was mysterious and often gone from home, the times he could spend with us and taking care of what business he could were joyful ones full of his passion for life and his work. And despite the fact that he never revealed to us what that new work was, I still stand by the fact that he must have been something special if God allowed him to return to us, however briefly. We will miss him greatly." Bowing his head, the man walks off the dais and another takes his place.

Aislin listens in silence to recountings of her opponent's early life; his mistakes and his shining moments, his faults, his virtues, and quirks she never knew he had. A small, reminiscent smile curves her lips as she remembers the look of shock on his face when she'd bowled him over in her rush to escape; or when she first started cussing at him the second she had regained consciousness at Koenma's and he had just stood there, slackjawed and bug-eyed at the sight of a tiny woman swearing like a sailor while nearly breaking free of restraints that would hold a being ten times her size.

Finally it is her turn, and she rises with a rustling of petticoats and walks up to the dais, looking down at the shell lying in the coffin. The smile disappears, replaced with a wistful expression as she takes the rose from her hair and lays it on his folded hands. Turning to face the mourners, she takes a deep breath and begins.

"My name, for those of you not aware, is Aislin Moors." Several startled gasps rise from the audience, followed by a few confused murmurings. "I was given a vow of safe passage so that I could attend this man's funeral out of respect for him and his accomplishments in this life. Out of all of those who have tried their best to bring me to justice over the many long years I have existed, only this man, the one you call Anthony Barbarac and whom I knew as Yuuki Miyami, has ever succeeded." She pauses, and lets that sink in, sparing a glance towards her mate who is watching her attentively. "Despite his best efforts and through no fault of his own I escaped from his hold and once more returned to my previous life of deeds that only partly deserve the term 'chivalrous', but I remembered him. I have sat here throughout this service, listening to your stories about his life and his achievements and failures; and I have learned more about this man in three hours than I have in the decade that I have known and battled against him." She takes another deep breath, and glances back at the still form behind her.

"He was not perfect, no being alive is, whatever the priests of any religion say about it. But I will hold true to the fact that despite those flaws and imperfections, despite his stubbornness and moments of complete idiocy, he was a good and noble man. Nobility is not in the blood, it is in the heart, and for as long as I live, I will remember him. And, ladies and gentlemen, remembrance is its own form of immortality. Safe travels to your soul, my adversary. You truly do deserve them." Placing her hands in a prayer position, she turns and bows deeply to the coffin before resuming her seat, noting a few watery and grateful smiles sent her way. Yoko wraps an arm around her shoulders and gives her a brief, gentle hug as the priest resumes his place and intones a short prayer, the pall-bearers walking up and lifting the coffin onto their shoulders afterwards. Aislin and Yoko are among the honor-guard lining the way to the grave.

Last words are spoken, mementos are dropped gently onto the ebony coffin, and the grave is slowly filled in with the dark brown soil carefully saved on a canvas tarp nearby. After the last shovelful is laid in place, everyone bows their heads for a moment, even Koenma missing the glance shared between the two youkai as they clasp each other's hand.

Gasps arise from the gathering when the soil by the marble tombstone shifts, a couple of screams fading away when the culprit proves to be, not a body, but a plant twining dark green stems towards the sky. Within a few breaths a vibrant rosebush has sprouted from the raw earth of the grave's center, double-roses colored the same blue as the bloom Aislin had laid on Yuuki/Anthony's hands unfurling to face the sunlight.

Koenma shoots a suspicious glance at the two youkai, who simply smile secretively at him before Yoko speaks up. "One more miracle for him, it would seem, ladies and gentlemen. And I highly doubt this bush will ever encroach on any other sleeper, nor ever need tending." Casting one last look at the new memorandum, he pulls off his earring and Aislin's and drops them onto the ground at his feet. With a curt nod to Koenma, he bows in a courtly gesture and holds out his hand.

Smiling quietly, Aislin places her hand in his and they begin to walk off, Yoko's hair shimmering back towards silver as he goes, the pair disappearing through a shimmering portal just before his ears pop back up.

======================================================

__

I kept track of the legends of that area for a brief while--perhaps nearly a century--and much to my amusement the tale of Miyami's funeral blurred into something resembling a Bible story of the Christians/Catholics. According to the new tale, a noble-hearted man was given a second chance at life when he proved his worth in a fatal-but-very-noble deed, that chance given by God himself, and charged with a holy crusade. When he passed a second time, two celestial beings attended his funeral, an angel and a demon, in honor of that crusade. The demon--me, of course--told the gathering of her battles against the mortal man, and honored him quite piously in her eulogy to him.

Afterwards, the angel caused a rosebush to grow over the man's grave, its blooms the supposed color of the bluest blood as a sign of his great deeds, and the angel and demon then left, he resuming his true angelic form and hand in hand with the demon. Apparently we were supposed to be either fallen and/or redeemed, the story never quite stated which, and eternal lovers forever walking the earth as neither welcome in Heaven or Hell.

Well, they were partially right, which isn't bad for a legend. And the rosebush did exactly as it was ordered to--never grew much farther than its first day and lasted all the way through a revolution to boot. Koenma later told me that he'd let Miyami attend his own funeral as a ghost--which explains that chuckle I heard when I mentioned his roundhouse. It really was him, and I wasn't just imagining it. The Detective was as disgusted with the choice of priest as I was according to Koenma, but very appreciative of the rosebush--he told Koenma he loved roses almost as much as a fox would. A small part of me--the one that was beginning to tire of thieving and hiding--was and is still glad that I attended that funeral, if only for the chance to express my respect for a brave and skilled opponent. Sadly, tragedy was to strike much closer to home before that decade had ended.

========================================================

"Yoko, I have a bad feeling about tonight," Aislin tells him as he prepares for the paired raid he'd planned for tomorrow night. "Please, don't go."

"Don't worry, my snow-flower, we'll be back in a couple of days, I promise!" Yoko laughs, tugging on his pants-legs to settle them and turning to ruffle her hair/fur.

"Aislin, my chain broke again!" Kuronue whines, rushing into her new workroom and holding up the necklace he _always_, without exception, wears around his neck. "Fix it, please?" The chain lies in two pieces in his hand, the pendant--a simple thing of a small ruby set into a horizontal oval of silver--clenched safely in his other fist. Sighing, Aislin takes the chain over to her jewelry bench and sets a small ball of brilliant white rei in the air above her head while getting out a tiny pair of pliers and a minute silver link.

"I keep telling you to get a new chain for this thing, Kuro-kun. One of these days it's going to snap in the middle of a heist and then where will you be?"

"Going back to get it, of course." Shaking her head in disapproval, she hands the repaired chain back to him and watches as he reverently slips the pendant back on and around his neck.

"And dying for it, little brother. I'm telling you, and this is an order, Kuronue: _get a new chain before the heist_. And I want you to put that pendant on that new chain before tomorrow night. Is that understood?"

"Ma'am, yes, ma'am!" Kuronue chuckles, snapping to attention and saluting briskly. She pokes him in the stomach, face grim.

"I'm not joking, Kuronue. Something doesn't feel right about this trip, and my hunches have always proved right before. You getting a better chain will ease some of this uneasiness. Promise me, Kuronue."

With a resigned sigh, the handsome bat demon nods. "I promise you, I will get a new chain and be wearing it for the heist. I have every intention of coming back and celebrating with some of that wine I know you have stashed away somewhere."

"My Nine-hundreds bottle of Fireberry wine?"

"That's the one!"

She grins. "Come back alive and safe and you get half the bottle, Kuro-kun. Agreed?"

"Agreed!" And with a jaunty wave the raven-haired bat demon jogs out of the room. Instantly the laughter in the koorime's eyes are gone, and she practically glares at her mate.

"I don't want you two going, Yoko Kurama. This is not going to go well." Sighing, Yoko sits down on the bench behind her and pulls her into a warm hug.

"Beloved, we're both going to come back alive and safe, I promise you that. Why don't you believe me?"

"Because it feels like Fate's playing a different tune than yours, my heart. Do me a favor?"

He smiles against the back of her head. "What's that?"

"Let me borrow your earring?" His humor vanishes and he straightens.

"You're going into the Void?" he asks in alarm, and she nods with her eyes closed.

"I'm not going to be satisfied just sitting here, waiting for you to come home. I've spent days in the Void before, Yoko--that's not something many demons can do. Since you won't let me come along physically, I'm going along mentally."

With a explosive sigh he reaches up and pulls the backing that keeps the earring in place away, leaning over and putting it into her earlobe with his own hands. "There. A touch of my rei's in there, too, so you can sense me no matter where I am." He gently kisses her cheek before rising and putting the finishing touches on his costume. "There, what do you think?"

Despite herself she has to smile at the dashing figure he cuts standing there against the pale door. "Very edible, my fox." Getting herself up she walks with him to the main opening of the cave, where Kuronue already waits with his backpack slung over one shoulder and away from his small wings. She pulls each one down for a final kiss: Kuronue on the cheek, Yoko on the lips, and pulls away from them both as though afraid to touch them. "Come back, you two. You promised."

With a last wave and a smile from each, the two males take off running, rapidly disappearing in the darkness beneath the trees. She watches them until she can no longer see them, and turns to find that several others of the crew are standing there, just as troubled as she.

"Don't like this," a scarred earth apparition says grimly, her brown eyes solemn. "Don't like this at all, boss."

"I know. Wake me if something important--like the caves collapsing--happens while I'm 'asleep'." Nodding, the others return to whatever they had interrupted and she walks slowly to the room she shares with Yoko. Its quiet luxury usually soothes her no matter the mood, but tonight nothing with calm the jangling alarm stridently howling in the back of her mind.

Stripping down to her underthings she slides into the thick pile of furs and pillows that forms the bed, and rubs the Tear of the Rose pensively before closing her eyes and breathing outwards. Her body stills, her hand drops limply to the furs beside her head, her breathing becomes barely noticeable as her pulse slows.

Untangling herself from her body, the soul of Aislin unfurls her draconic wings and takes off on a path that goes straight through the wall, trailing a ghostly cloud of silvery dust behind her that fades before it touches the floor.

===

_Dreaming, she flies on her dragon wings in the direction that she had seen Yoko and Kuronue take, not bothering to flap in an unnecessary parody of real flight as she goes. It is a matter of minutes before she catches up with them, and she slows to keep them in sight, senses alert for any danger. Kuronue keeps sending uneasy glances upwards to where she coasts above them, not even bothering to fly above the trees since she can simply pass straight through them._

_ "Hey, Yoko, it feels like someone's following us," he warns and Aislin's muzzle stretches into a grin as do her beloved's sensual lips._

_"Someone's following us, all right. It's a very stubborn koorime that is too worried to stay at home like she's supposed to."_

_/Prick,/ she growls lovingly, swooping down and passing straight through him. He shudders and snarls, rubbing at his stomach in irritation._

_"Don't _do_ that, Aislin."_

_ "I can see why she did. Look at your stomach, heart-brother." Glancing down as he runs, he sees the silver glitter just before it fades. "She likes putting her mark on you."_

_/Yup,/ the ice-fox agrees calmly. /And don't forget about that chain, Kuronue./ _

_"You're really set on the chain-thing, aren't you?"_

_/Better believe it./ _

_The bat demon shrugs. "Hey, I get half that bottle of Fireberry if I do, I ain't complaining."_

_/Smart bat demon./ Sticking his tongue out at her, he lets the conversation drop to conserve his breath--it's going to take most of the night running to get into position for the heist tomorrow night and he's only in marginally less great shape than the Silver Thief running beside him._

_Allowing her senses to phase inwards for the time being, she sets her wings on auto and lets go her sense of time._

==================================================================================

Koi: love

Ningenkai: Human world (Makai=Demon World, Reikai=Spirit World)

Rei/reiki: Spirit energy


	6. Chapter Six

Winter Rose, Chapter Six

==================================================================================

__

_ She awakens to twilight, her beloved and her soul-brother seated on branches in a tree not too far from the gaping gargoyle mouth that is their target's entrance. Feeling her awareness refocus on him, Yoko glances upwards and puts a finger to his lips for silence. Nodding, she settles lightly on his shoulders like she's done once before, making the fox shiver in response._

_ Scanning their surroundings, she notices the pendant around Kuronue's neck and flattens her ears, tensing. Shooting a startled glance at her, Kuronue then looks at Yoko in questioning. _/_Chain,/ she chances, whispering it to Yoko as faintly as she possibly can with the chance of it still being heard. Yoko in turns tugs at a nonexistent necklace chain, and Kuronue blanches, mouthing 'kuso!'_

_ The chain holding his valued pendant is still the one he was wearing when he left, gleaming in places from the newer links she had used to replace the broken ones. Shrugging to say 'oh, well, too late now' the bat demon returns his attention to studying the terrain in front of them, leaving Aislin to screech profanities in her head at them for being all kinds of stupid. She falls silent when the sun finishes setting and the two slip off, she remaining there in order to avoid tripping any alarms set to detect astral forms and endangering them._

_ The two are here for a very special prize: the Mirror of Truth, a sister to the Mirror of Utter Dark/Forlorn Hope. Their targeted mirror reflects the truth of any situation or appearance, so long as one phrases the correct question to it. Some sorcerer who thought he was also a Bard had created it, and set it so that once must recite the question in a rhyming couplet beginning with 'mirror, mirror'. Tales of it had even spread to the Ningenkai, hidden in children's fairy tales as a wicked Queen's magic mirror._

_ She jolts at the klaxon of alarms suddenly yammering their warning to the previously silent air, and figuring that the alarms were already awake, Aislin moves closer to watch and wait. The trees turn into a barrier of bamboo canes, but it is with relief that she spots her men racing from the gargoyle mouth into open air._

_ Smirking, Yoko shows their prize to her--the Mirror, undamaged and gleaming in the moonlight--for just a moment before the two run off ahead of the guards. That feeling of doom rushes down Aislin's insubstantial spine when they get halfway through the bamboo forest, Kuronue crying out in dismay as the chain snaps and his pendant falls with a soft thump to the lush ground._

_"Leave it!" Yoko commands pleadingly, but the bat demon turns back._

_ "I need it!" he calls back, and practically dives on the gem, holding it up in relief and turning to run. Aislin's ghostly scream mingles with Yoko's as spears of bamboo plummet around them and into Kuronue's body, pinning him by the leg to the spot in a shower of bladed leaves. With his last breaths, the bat demon commands his friend to flee, and with many looks back the silver fox reluctantly does so._

_ Aislin stays behind, stunned, and then streaks to Kuronue's still body and touches his cheek gently with her paw. To her surprise he chuckles, coughs up blood, and opens deep blue eyes to smile. "Sorry, ice-girl. Guess I don't get that wine after all. Sorry to break my promise."_

_/Baka,/ she cries, tears falling into nothingness as she wraps herself around him. /I _told_ you you should have gotten a new chain./ _

_ "Stupid me," the bat demon agrees weakly as the guards surround him, uncertain as to why he's suddenly covered in shimmering silver powder as the severed artery in his leg continues to bleed at an alarming pace. "Goodbye…heart-sister. Tell Yoko…I'm sorry." A few moments later the midnight eyes drift shut and his body slumps to the ground, falling through Aislin while he's at it, leaving her to hang in the air and throw her head back to keen when she can no longer hear his heartbeat._

_ The guards stagger back in shock at the ear-piercing sound, Aislin pouring all her grief into her subsonic ability and willing for the guards' own hearts to burst in retribution for her loss while she slowly drifts down to sit beside her dear friend and mourn._

_ First one falls, and then another and another; most of the confused apparitions have fallen before Aislin sees through her grief enough to reach the rage boiling just beneath. Instantly ice coats everything in sight right up to the mansion, except for a small oval around the fallen body of Kuronue. Stepping lightly, footfalls sending up tiny clouds of her signature platinum dust, she walks over to one of the still standing guards and growls in deadly fury._

_/You _killed_ him!/ she howls, power sending her fur and tails upwards in a rush of icy wind, the frozen male shattering into hundreds of pieces. Hatred unslaked, she stalks over to the next and does the same thing to him, rejoicing at the sight of his shattered remains. She does this to every single frozen statue, even the ones of the already-dead guards, until there is nothing left but bite-sized chunks scattered all around._

_ Only then does she slowly walk back to Kuronue's motionless form and gently touches his cheek with her nose. By his hand is his cherished pendant, broken chain coiled like a dead silvery snake half in, half out of the growing puddle of blood. Using more of her nearly-limitless energy she solidifies and delicately picks the pendant and chain up in her teeth before settling cat-like on Kuronue's body and focusing on the easily-detected energy signature of her lodestone. /Home,/ she whispers, and both vanish into the darkness._

===

She comes to herself with a thump and a cry, feeling the solid weight of a cold body sprawled on top of her legs. Bolting upright into a sitting position, she finds to her grief that the images she remembers are not just illusions of the Void as she had hoped, for laid across her blanketed legs is the corpse of her soul-brother Kuronue, a trace of blood still dripping from the fatal leg wound.

Gasping at first, the gasps soon dissolve into wracking sobs as she throws herself across Kuronue and weeps into the back of his shirt, still mindful of the small wings folded limply against his back to never be used again. That thought brings on a torrent of fresh tears and black gems, footsteps reaching her grief-fogged ears and exclamations heard as her thieves run into the room to find out the reason for her crying.

Hands grab her shoulders and pull her only slightly away, shaking her to gain her attention. Gulping, she breaks her attention away from Kuronue to the still-living face of Ikazuchi, the lightning-wolf demon who had given her Koenma's letter and who is now a skilled thief and one of Yoko's captains despite his youth. "Aislin-san! Aislin-san, please! What about Yoko-san??"

"A…live," she chokes out, a fraction of the tension in the room leaking away at the welcome news. "On…his…way." Ikazuchi lets his ears fold back in sorrow and he wraps her in a hug, the koorime breaking down again and sobbing into his shoulder, hands clutching at his rough wool shirt as though clinging for dear life. All around her the news is being spread, both the good and the bad, and various cries of grief are becoming audible throughout the caves as everyone gives into their sorrow at the passing of a comrade.

Someone else comes beside Aislin and reaches across her to the blankets on the other side, hand coming away from the furs with a soft exclamation of surprise. Aislin glances up, spots Kuronue's pendant being held by a hanyou blood demon new to the gang, and snatches it with a hiss out of the clawed hand, blood-shot eyes daring him to protest. Holding his hands up in a peaceful, defensive gesture the demon backs off.

Wiping away her tears and ignoring the black gems that fall to the ground and into the furs, Aislin rises to her feet and grabs a robe, wrapping it around her shivering body and looking once more with sorrow-filled eyes at her slain friend. "Take him to the Death-chamber, Ikazuchi. Yoko will want to say his goodbyes before we send our friend on his way."

"Yes, Aislin-sama. I swear it will be done," the lightning-wolf tells her solemnly, tenderly rolling the body face-up and lifting it in powerful arms as though it weighed nothing. _Yes, it,_ Aislin thinks to herself. _I cannot think what that used to be, or else I will collapse into despair. And I cannot do that, the band needs me until Yoko returns. So, 'it' it shall be until I have the luxury of mourning._ But she can't help but feel a stab of guilt at the feeling she has somehow betrayed her friend as she follows the captain out of her room and down the corridors to the Death-chamber.

Half a day later as the sun reaches zenith, a half-conscious Yoko staggers into the Lair, Mirror in a strangle-hold in his hands. Quietly he is led to the Death-chamber, where Aislin still kneels numbly on the floor in front of the altar-like slab upon which Kuronue's body is displayed in funeral glory. She hasn't bothered to change into something besides the robe, perfectly comfortable in the stone-chilled room filled with lit candles to illuminate the high ceiling. Her eyes stare ahead unblinkingly, dry of any tears and with none glittering on the floor around her.

The Mirror is rescued by Yoko's guide when it falls from his suddenly-limp fingers as he staggers forward, sobs beginning to shake his entire body at the sight of his friend's still form before him, and not behind in a pauper's grave as he had thought. As he had feared.

"How..?" he gasps out, turning to the unblinking koorime.

"I brought him here. It's the only thing I can do in my astral form, and only when I have the right motivation." A cheerless smile that resembles more of a grimace bares her fangs to gleam in the candle-light. "Obviously the circumstances were right." She turns her head to gaze at him, emotions finally filling her eyes and spilling outwards as more tears, of black and purple and red and blue gems that chime as they fall and roll away. "He bled to death in front of me, Yoko. I couldn't save him…I wanted to! Oh, Inari, I wanted to!" On legs weak from running too far, too fast and hard, Yoko stumbles to her side and drops to his knees, enfolding her into a fierce hug as both of them keen their grief to the silent gods.

===

"Again, she destroys a mansion," Koenma says quietly to the human man standing beside him, the pacifier once again in the child-ruler's mouth and being chewed on pensively. "But why this one? What did they do to her?" It is a week after the disastrous robbery, and the Spirit World Enforcers have arrived to another scene of utter annihilation.

"Koenma-sama!" An ogre waves from farther away from the rubble that once was a gargoyle-mouthed entrance. "Over here! We think we found something!"

Rushing over, Koenma and the human are stopped by an unexpected sight. Standing in a circle of soggy bits of flesh is a glittering statue of ice in the form of a male bat-demon; highly-detailed, life-sized and shining to everyone's Sight with focused rei energy and magic among broken canes of bamboo. In raised, frozen letters made of blood is written: 'In memoriam of Kuronue Skyleaper. The destruction of his killers and their home shall forever stand as a reminder.'

"Reminder?" the human man wonders aloud. "Reminder of what?"

"To never kill someone dear to me," Aislin replies icily from beside the statue. "This is their punishment."

"This amount of destruction isn't like you, Moors-san," Koenma scolds her calmly, never moving an inch though the man jumped about a foot at the sight of someone appearing out of thin air less than three feet away. A cold, deadly smile blooms onto the mask-like face and a humorless laugh rings throughout the clearing.

"You haven't seen me when I'm _really_ angry, Koenma. They destroyed something incredibly precious to me. I simply returned the favor tenfold." She moves away from the statue, one hand lingering briefly on the frozen arm, stepping lightly over the words to stand arrogantly before the child-king. A light gesture freezes the various people attempting to sneak up on her with restraints, and she makes that frozen laugh again, not a trace of subsonics in it; only the sounds of pain and loss. The koorime rakes the human male with an assessing gaze before jerking a thumb at him and looking back at Koenma. "New Spirit Detective?" she inquires indifferently and the toddler nods.

"Indeed. I had hoped you two would meet under different circumstances, but I suppose now will do. Aislin Moors, meet Hatsuharu Aneibara."

"'Shadowrose'? Pretty ambitious name you've got there." The raven-haired man simply stares glacially back at her, arms folded across his black-clad chest.

"I am from a long line of ninjutsu practitioners," he informs her icily. "My ancestors chose our surname in respects to our profession."

"I suppose you've been dead once, too." The statement is bitter, sour.

"Yes."

"Yippee for you, ningen. If some others were so fortunate as you, I wouldn'tve had to do so much damage. You have my warning and reminder, Koenma. I'll see you around. If you're unlucky." As she walks around him and starts passing among his temporarily-frozen employees, she calls back over her shoulder, "And don't bother trying to get a reading of my energy off that statue, Koenma. The preservation spell is linked very thoroughly in with it, and if you actually waste your time in trying it'll just give you a jumbled bunch of nonsense and end up pointing you in the direction of Ningenkai's Alaska. Sayonara." And she leaps into the air and is gone.

Koenma lets out his inheld breath shakily while Hatsuharu relaxes tensed muscles. "Koenma-sama, let me know next time when my opponent is going to be scary as fucking hell," he requests politely.

======================================================

_Yoko and I, we turned colder after that, like a piece of ourselves died along with Kuronue, a piece that held our happiness and joy. There were moments when you could get us to laugh, and rarer moments when you could get us to crack jokes, but those were few and far between. Hatsuharu turned out to be even more troublesome than Yuuki/Anthony in his way, but he never caught me like his predecessor did. He proved himself to be tougher, as well, lasting a full three decades to the Frenchman's two, but he died in battle just as Yuuki had. His was the third funeral I attended, the others being Yuuki and Kuronue, in that order, and again I received a vow of safe passage to attend it._

_ That one doesn't stand out as much in my memory as the others, understandably enough, since I did not share a bond with him as I had with Yuuki--after all, Yuuki actually _caught_ me. All Hatsuharu got from me was pneumonia. The century finished passing, and a boy named Sensui Shinobu entered the scene as the next one neared closing, Koenma's latest Spirit Detective--his youngest yet-- and one of those fools who sees the world as black and white with no shades between them._

_ He was the one I warned Koenma about, the one who would eventually turn and bite the hand that fed him, because of one mission that went sour. The ningen boy had power, oh, yes, he had power, but he did not understand human or demonic nature. In his eyes, all demons were bad, and all humans were good, because his parents, I believe, were slain by youkai. Some humans were better than others, but he held humanity as the highest species above the rest, the most pure. He proved to be the most aggravating, and it took quite a lot of effort to keep to a vow I had made, that no Detective would die because of me. Oh, it was hard! To be called scum and misborn and many other nasty names was bad enough; that he called me names I was particularly sensitive to--especially 'misborn'--earned him several sessions finding out what it was like being a Popsicle. He and I _hated_ each other on sight, and it was one of my few true enjoyments to torment and tease him as my darkest nature wished. He wanted an evil demon? Fine. I was going to give him an evil demon. I also made sure that I was sarcastic, rude, and colder than ice with a tendency to play with my prey--namely, him._

_ But he was a fool beneath it all, misguided and blind and borderline-obsessive; and one night ruined him for Koenma. I was told this story about a decade after it happened, the reason I shall explain in due course. Sensui's last mission as Spirit Detective was to break up a ring of slavers specializing in demon and apparition 'toys'. The thing was, the slavers were human. And by chance or destiny, he was sent to break it up at the worst possible time: a night of basest revelry. The teenager burst into a ballroom filled with human men drinking blood, mutilating youkai slaves, raping and torturing and thoroughly enjoying themselves throughout the whole thing._

_ Sensui's mind, being neither flexible nor open, shattered. And once where there was a defender, there was now a destroyer. The last I heard of him through my now-vast network of intelligence, he was planning on ripping open the barrier between the Makai and Ningenkai. If he succeeds, so be it. I no longer particularly care._

_ Actually, he reminds me somewhat of that once-human demon named Toguro. I fought him once, just after he made his wish to become the strongest demon in the world. Considering he started out ranked at S-class, he wasn't that much of a challenge, and it was only an hour or two before I defeated him. A newbie who did not fully understand his new abilities was not really worth my time, though I _do_ wish I'd gotten to fight him again before he was slain by Yusuke in the Final round of the most recent Tournament. But I am getting off the subject. Yoko._

_ Yoko was my last salvation, the only thing keeping me from forgetting who I started out as and the last line of defense against my darkest, bloodiest desires. I loved him. So very dearly did I love him, and I was secure in the knowledge that no matter what I was--murderer, thief, or angel of mercy--he loved me. In a world governed by hate and fear, that love became legendary in the way that the human Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet are legendary. Songs and tales were written about us, the new name I had taken 'Winter Rose' suiting my Silver Thief and myself very well indeed, for I was beauty at a price, and he had paid that price in blood when I'd very first bitten him. Only to him did I reveal that softness above the thorns--well, to him and small children, of which I am still fond. Children still have some crumbs of innocence, even here in the Demon World, and I cannot find it in my frozen heart to ruin it any faster than it already is. They also remind me of Hiei, or what he used to be very long ago. I hear he's turned as cold as me, and just as ruthless, but I have not contacted him in any fashion since that last time in the Void. It startles me to admit that I miss him. I can remember starting hundreds of letters, telling him hundreds of insignificant details and every single one ended up in the fireplace. Numerous times I have been on the verge of leaping into the Void and crying his name in a summons, but I have kept my soul locked firmly in my body where it belongs. I am alone now. And this is how it came to pass._

======================================================

"You've always been too stubborn, both of you!" Ikazuchi snaps at the two silent figures walking side by side towards the exit of the caves. "This is no time to take a vacation, and you just up and decide to disappear for a whole _year_?? We're in the middle of a Guild war, toumoku-sama! How will we handle this on our own??"

Aislin stops in her tracks, Yoko stopping a step later, neither of them turning to look at the frantic lightning-wolf demon trailing along behind them. "Ikazuchi, if you truly need either of us after a century of helping to lead this band of thieves, then you do not deserve to lead and everyone can go their separate ways. It has been centuries since either of us has thought about any kind of break, and it is high time we took one." She resumes walking, head down, eyes shadowed, and feet silent on the stone floor. Yoko takes his place beside her, tossing one last comment over his shoulder.

"Consider this a test of the captains' abilities, Ikazuchi, and we'll see you in a year. Try not to destroy everything while we're gone." And the two vanish into the forest beyond the caves, leaving the poor half-blood to blink in shock at his grim leader suddenly cracking a joke with the most deadpan face imaginable.

It is winter now, in the chosen refuge of the King and Queen of Thieves, a light-house tower at the edge of an alien sea. Water elementals sing songs below the high windows, whale demons gambol in the always-warm waters, jagged cliffs keeping tourists at bay. Snow drifts high around the base of the tower but with Aislin's abilities it is no effort to come and go as they please.

Not that they usually do please. For the first time in a very long time, they are simply relaxing. There are no thoughts beyond lazing and what they shall cook next, or disturbances to get in the way of each other. Yoko watches from the small entrance as his beloved dances around in the snow without any clothes to his singing, only to pull him out into the drifts with her and romp with him until they're both exhausted, curling up under furs in front of a roaring fire to sleep until they feel like waking.

They spend days on end not even bothering to eat, merely staying in bed and once more reminding each other of what it feels like to simply lie there and cuddle or groom for as long as they want. The lighthouse tends itself, a particularly lazy light apparition paid to sleep in place of a bulb every night as the beacon, and there is no one else to see what the rest of the tower looks like.

They sing and dance and play to their hearts' content whenever they please, and pesky annoying people that come to use the tower are quickly chased off by Yoko's cold-loving variant of stranglevine and the demonic dogwood. Aislin writes to her old friend Mizu, and receives a reply full of warm and happy news of his family, his promotion to Guild Master, and other things he thought might interest her as well as a parcel full of a new sweet--chocolate. She sends him back a letter with a rather sticky lip-print on it with the words THANK YOU! scrawled above and below from both her and Yoko (who she had to fight the last bit of chocolate for).

Light is beginning to fill their world again, making it the mischief-plenty place they once knew instead of the bleak desert Kuronue's death had left them with, and they even tolerate a social call from Koenma who simply wants to see how they've been doing since he last saw them.

Astonished looks had greeted him on arrival, and he grumpily tells them that despite the fact they're wanted criminals they are likely the only people who would leave him _alone_ about unfinished paperwork and whatnot, and besides, he misses Aislin's constant needlings and Yoko's clever wits and he is _bored_ with Spirit World. Actually laughing, the two invite him in for tea and sweets and news, catching up on what they'd missed while 'exiled' here in the tower. He tells them about Sensui, and it is with extreme satisfaction that she tells Koenma 'I told you so'.

"Yes, I know you told me so, you don't have to keep rubbing it in," Koenma grumbles irritably, rewarded with bright impish smiles from both. He blinks at them, and smiles back himself. "Aislin, do you know how long it's been since I've seen either of you smile like that?" The two look at each other and then back to him, shaking their head in negation. He sits back in his teenaged body and swirls his green tea thoughtfully. "I haven't seen that smile on either of you since you buried Yuuki under that snowdrift, remember?"

"Oh, yes!" Aislin laughs merrily. "That was when he taught me a few new swear words that I hadn't learned yet! It took him forever to unbury himself!"

"His face was priceless," Yoko adds cheerfully beside her, a milky mustache on his upper lip from the whipped cream on a pasty. Licking it off, he mentions, "That was that time we tried to steal that jewel, wasn't it? What was it called…?"

"I think it was called the Summer Stone," Aislin says thoughtfully, tapping her lips with a finger. "Didn't we steal the other three?"

Yoko stops laughing and tilts his head to one side, remembering. "Huh, you know, I can't remember? I guess we'll have to go look in our trove when we go home come spring."

"If you _have_ stolen them," Koenma pleads, "could you kindly consider returning them? My father's been a little grumpy that they're gone."

"We'll think about it, Koenma," Aislin assures him with a chirp, biting into a sugar cookie. Yoko attempts to tug the cookie away from her and she growls playfully, batting at the offending hand.

"Not that much sugar, okay, hon? You on a sugar-high gets scary sometimes." Sighing, she relinquishes the sweet and rolls her eyes back to Koenma when he clears his throat.

"Aislin, I'd like to ask you for a favor." Her eyebrows go up and her pupils nearly disappear into the turquoise out of shock.

"_Me_? A _favor_?" Koenma sighs and nods.

"You've been an excellent gauge of people's character, and I was wondering…" Understanding dawns and her pink lips curl upwards into an impish, wicked smile.

"You, Koenma, Prince of the Reikai, want me, the Queen of Thieves, to vet your Detectives, is that it?"

Blushing, Koenma mumbles, "Yeah, pretty much." The two across from him burst into peals of laughter, holding their sides as though they would pop and eventually leaning against each other to stay upright. Koenma sits there patiently until they resume control, wiping away a couple of tears and grinning helplessly. Aislin tosses Koenma a bright emerald tear gem and chuckles to herself before bobbing her head in a sketchy sort of bow.

"Oh, that was wonderful!" Yoko purrs, still sniggering to himself as he props his elbow on the low table. "We haven't had a laugh like that in ages."

"You're welcome," the child-king sighs, admiring the gem. "And thank you for this, Aislin."

"Least I could do, Koenma, that really was nice. And yes, I think I will do that for you. It's something to do besides steal, anyway."

Koenma's face lights up. "Oh, thank you!" he enthuses, practically bouncing in place. "You have no idea how helpful that would be!"

"Hey, if it saves me from another Sensui, I'd be happy to," Aislin points out. "That boy had to be one of the most hard-headed and single-minded individuals I have ever met."

"But he did good work."

"When he wasn't bashing his head against a brick wall? Yes, he did good work." She waves a hand negligently in the air as though to prove her next point. "Just remember, alpha-kit, that though someone might be visible as good, it doesn't mean that they'll stay that way. And just because someone is seen as bad, it doesn't mean that they are _all_ bad, or must stay that way. Myself as a prime example."

Chuckling, Koenma rises to his feet and nods to them both as he walks to the exit. "I'll keep that in mind, Aislin. See you two around."

"Jya ne!" the two chorus to the closing door. Silence falls in the spacious living room, the lovers enjoying their snack. Finally Yoko breaks the silence.

"You know…" he begins, only to have Aislin grin at him with her fox ears tilting to the sides.

"We really should go after that Summer Stone. It'd be a shame not to have the complete set, right?" He grins and kisses her merrily, laughing.

"Right! But should we wait until spring or should we try for it sooner?"

"And should only one of us go or both," she adds.

"Do we know where it is now?"

"And what kind of security system it has?" Practically sparkling with renewed interest in their livelihood, the two put their heads together and begin to plan.

===

A warm breeze circles around the lighthouse tower, the stars glittering brightly overhead and the moon shining down on the two figures standing just outside the main doors. It is the barest beginning of spring, and a full moon gilds the landscape in silver while turning the calm sea into a brilliant mirror.

"Promise me you'll be careful, beloved," Aislin murmurs to her beloved while he runs his hands through her hip-length tresses one last time. "I don't know what'll happen to me if I lose you." He kisses her gently, thumb brushing against her cheek tenderly before he pulls away.

"I have to come back, aisuhana. We haven't had a family yet, remember?"

"Of all the times for you to be thinking about sex, you lecherous fox," the ice demon sighs in exasperation, reaching up and tugging on his ear. "Lend me your earring, beloved."

"Going to follow me in astral form again?" he asks as he complies, folding the gem into her fingers and bestowing her knuckles with another kiss.

"No. This time I'm going to stay here and wear a hole in the rug," she informs him firmly. "I wanted your earring so you'll really have a reason to come back."

"Paranoid," he teases gently.

"'It's not paranoia if someone really is out to kill you'," she retorts calmly, quoting the assassins' cliché. Yoko merely laughs, shaking his head in amusement at his mate before giving a whole-body wriggle to make sure his muscles are properly loose.

"I swear to you that I will be back by morning, beloved. Not even death or Koenma could keep me away. I promise. _And_," he drawls, "I'll make sure to swipe something extra for our anniversary next week."

"You sly fox, you mean you remember?" Aislin laughs, hugging him tightly before stepping back.

"Of course I remember!" His entire body-set is indignant. "After you nearly gave me frostbite the last time I forgot, I don't intend to repeat the experience."

"Got you to remember, didn't it?" she prods with a grin and he nods, a smile flashing his white teeth. "Now, before you go, if you _are_ spotted, what are you going to do?"

"I drop everything and run like fury," he answers, kissing her on the cheek. "I remember, all right. And I'll see you in the morning, beloved."

"And if the worst should happen?" she asks suddenly, quietly, despite wishing she would just keep her mouth shut. He looks startled at the question, then determined.

"If the worst should happen, I will be back before ten years pass. This I swear on my blood and bones, and all the treasure in the world. Wo ai ni, my white rose."

"Wo ai ni. I love you, too, Yoko." And with one last smile and tug at her hair, he takes off in a ground eating lope eastward to the Summer Stone's vault. "Be safe." She stands there, watching, until the small silver form disappears even to her keen sight. And with a sigh, she settles onto the doorstep to wait through the night.

=====================================================

_In spite of myself, I fell asleep and Dreamed. And I dearly wish I hadn't._

=====================================================

_In her dreams, Aislin watches the moon rise over a fragile-looking pagoda standing beside a mirror-flat lake. She knows she's smiling, although she can't feel it: this is where the treasure called the Summer Stone is kept. No one really knows if it has powers or not, it's just a really, really big and flawless emerald worth a whole lot of money. They normally wouldn't bother with this sort of thing, but a message back to the Lair returned with the information that yes, the other three Season Stones are somewhere among the piles of loot accumulated over the centuries. Well, that, and it'd be a real challenge to get this one: the security on it is phenomenal, even for thieves as skilled as she and Yoko._

Speak of the devil…_She watches avidly as her beloved appears at the edge of a thicket quite close to the pagoda-mansion/vault, sizing the place up with excited golden eyes. She floats in the sky and watches as he slips as silent as a shadow across the open space to the lowest overhang of the pagoda's roof, levering himself up and leaping to the next level. The Stone is being kept on the top floor, amidst the heaviest and most sophisticated alarms known in the three worlds._

_ Her Yoko breezes past them all as if they don't even exist. And it is by chance that a watchman spots him with his kitsune form's head buried in the Stone's treasure-chest. Excitement turns to alarm as the hue and cry is raised throughout the disguised fortress, and with terror Aislin sees her beloved plunge in a controlled fall the hundred-plus feet to the ground beyond the pagoda, Stone clenched in his teeth and a gold necklace hung around his neck. _Drop the Stone and run, _she begs him, _drop the Stone and **_run_**.

__

As though he heard her, Yoko spits out the jewel and performs a complicated body twist that makes him seem like a wraith, the chain dropping away into the lush grass and the silver kitsune fleeing for his life with a hunter close on his heels.

Fear closes Aislin's throat, making it difficult to breathe as she watches her beloved racing through the trees and underbrush as though all the hells and not a single hunter are on his trail--a hunter that reeks of death, blood, and power.

Blinding light blots out the world for the space of a breath, the Dreaming ice apparition blinking away spots to find the bounty hunter standing over the fallen body of her beloved, axe raised for the final blow. With a final defiant growl the thief's body dissolves into a silver ball of light just as the axe falls, leaping upwards and upwards until it passes beyond Aislin's vision.

===

Panting in fear, Aislin awakes on the lighthouse doorstep, fingers clenched so hard that her nails have bitten small crescents into her palms, blood trickling over her skin and the earring held safe within the curl of her left hand. With a savage gesture fueled by panic, she summons an ice imp that materializes with a deep bow in the air before her.

"What does m'lady wish of me?" it chimes, sounding like a mismatched set of glass bells and looking like a tiny elf made of frozen water.

"Go swift and go far, and learn what has happened to my beloved, the Silver Thief Yoko Kurama," she commands harshly. "Come back and tell me what has befallen him this past night."

"As m'lady wishes," the imp says politely, bowing again and vanishing halfway through. Clasping the earring to her lips, a wide-eyed, shaky ice-fox waits with cold dread freezing her blood for news of the worst sort.

And half an hour later, as dawn begins to tint the sky pale rose, she gets it. The imp reappears with its tiny face set into grim lines, and announces in a voice sounding more like death-bells, "The Silver Thief Yoko Kurama perished at the hands of a bounty hunter known as Kendrik of the Axe at one thirty three this morning, m'lady." With full knowledge of the coming explosion, it vanishes as the last words leave its mouth.

The koorime sits there in shock, benumbed by the news she had hoped the most not to hear, before the realization truly hits her. A single, heart-broken wail rips from her throat as she curls over the gem clenched in her hands, power rushing out from her and turning the world to ice.

__

===

Far away in another world entirely, a very concerned baby sits in an oversized office chair, behind a desk piled high with papers. Beside him stands a blue ogre in a tiger-stripe loincloth, with one tiny horn sticking out the middle of his forehead. In front of the desk stands a brown-haired woman in a black kimono decorated with a spray of lilacs. Beside her stands a blue-haired woman in a pink kimono, and both women look very serious indeed.

"Are you certain, Botan?" the baby asks, the blue binky never falling from his moving lips. The blue-haired woman nods.

"Yes, Koenma-sama. Yoko never entered Spirit World. We believe he may be hiding somewhere in the Ningenkai, but his rei will be too weak to track him for several years, I'm afraid."

"And what about her?" he asks of the brown-haired woman, whose sad eyes seem to get even deeper.

"She's permanently frozen over thirty square miles in a rough circle with that lighthouse at the center. There is no sign of activity or that there will be any soon. She is in mourning, Koenma-sama. Let her be for a little while longer."

"All right," the child-king agrees quietly. "Botan, keep an eye on her for me. If she hasn't moved in a week, let me know."

"Aye, Koenma, sir."

==================================================================================

Kuso: damn

Hatsuharu: first spring

Aneibara: shadow-rose

Ninjutsu: ninja techniques

Ningen: human

Sensui: fountain

Shinobu: to remember/to endure

Toumoko: leader (Japanese doesn't use plurals)


	7. Chapter Seven

Winter's Rose, Chapter Seven

==================================================================================

One morning in the middle of spring Koenma walks into his office and shrieks in surprise. Sitting in the chair before the oversized desk is a very quiet Aislin, with three glittering jewels the size of her two fists arranged in a row on the wooden surface and a bag made of heavy canvas on the floor beside her.

"Hello, Koenma," she says flatly, no trace of emotion or subsonics in that once-vibrant voice.

"Geez, Aislin, don't _do_ that!" the child-king snarls grumpily, but his attention is mostly taken up by the jewels. One is a ruby, one is a flawless piece of jade, and the third is a glittering diamond. "Um, are those what I think they are?"

"They are the remaining three Season Stones," she confirms, still toneless and expressionless. "I can no longer bear to keep them."

"You're also in the middle of Spirit World's detention facilities."

A humorless smirk bends her lips as if she's forgotten they can move that way. "I don't care anymore, Koenma. Do with me as you will. Nothing hurts now."

"Does that mean you would not struggle if I had you arrested and executed?" he asks carefully, and she shakes her head.

"No. I have had the last bit of revenge I will ever desire." And she places the heavy canvas bag on his desk without the slightest change of expression. "In case you're wondering, this is the head of Kendrik of the Axe. He was a human bounty hunter," she adds as though trying to provoke Koenma into one of his famous tantrums. "I believe causing the death of a human is punishable by immediate execution." A trace of emotion colors her voice, and he can barely believe what it is. Could she possibly hopeful about dying?

Wordlessly Koenma takes his seat behind his massive desk, still looking at the jewels and now the bagged head with troubled eyes. "Aislin, why are you doing this now?"

"The last reason I had for going on is gone, Koenma-san. Why continue without it?" she replies quietly.

"Is this about…Yoko?" Her entire body flinches away at the name, her fox ears popping up and flattening themselves to her skull.

"Please…don't ever say that name ever again, Koenma-san. I'd rather you kill me, first."

"Very well, Aislin," Koenma tells her calmly. "I hereby sentence you to three centuries of parole, to be carried out in a place of my choosing. You are to go over the candidates for future Spirit Detectives and other employees, to be received and sent in specialized boxes I will have provided for you. You will not engage in any further criminal activity, and you will surrender any and all information networks you have Whatever stolen property you have in possession will be turned in to the authorities. You will also inform me of every single known demon, apparition and whatever-else-type in your bloodline. Is that clear?"

"The things I have stolen are no longer mine," she informs him dully, "because everything that I owned has been given to the Lair, to the thieves that I no longer lead. Discuss the matter of property with them. The networks have already been disbanded and no longer function so they no longer apply. Your other terms are acceptable. Are we in agreement?"

"Your necklace and earring are still yours." A possessive hand clasps the ruby/silver pendant around her neck before moving to rub the blood-colored jewel in her earlobe, and cold turquoise eyes pin Koenma with an icy stare.

"These things have not been stolen and are mine by right. Touch them at your peril."

Koenma sighs and stretches out his hand, suddenly in his teenaged form. "Very well, Aislin. Agreed." With a slow nod, she reaches over and shakes it.

"Agreed."

He sits back, somewhat satisfied with the agreement, and presses a button on the arm of his chair. "Please start reciting your bloodlines, please."

Taking a deep breath, she does. "Human, one fourth. Ice apparition, one half. Fox apparition, one tenth. Earth demon, quantity unknown. Oracle demon, quantity unknown. Psychic demon, quantity unknown. Shadow demon, quantity unknown. Siren, quantity unknown. Storm demon, quantity unknown. Wind apparition, quantity unknown. Wolf demon, quantity unknown. Wood apparition, quantity unknown. Dragon demon, quantity unknown."

"_Dragon?_"

"Dragon. Remember my wings? Cat demon, quantity unknown. Hawk demon, quantity unknown. Horse demon, quantity unknown. All breeds of large felines, demon, quantity unknown. Illusions demon, quantity unknown. Reflections apparition, quantity unknown. Swan apparition, quantity unknown. Faerie blood, quantity unknown." She tilts her head to one side, eyes lifted to the ceiling and holding them there briefly before dropping her eyes back down to Koenma and shrugging. "I believe that is all of them. I will inform you of any that I missed or learn of in the future."

Koenma pushes another button on his arm-chair and nods. "Thank you, Aislin. Botan will escort you to your new dwelling shortly. You will be under close supervision, understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very well, Aislin. That will be all." And that is the last thing he says before the blue-haired Goddess of Death bounces in and smiles perkily at the nonplussed koorime.

"Oh, good morning! It's so nice to have someone turn themselves in for a change, you know! Just come with me, there's a dear, we have one of our lovely cottages picked out for you already, you'll love it! It has a blues and greens color scheme and a nice garden out the back and quite an extensive library!" Onward she chatters, ignoring the incredulous look Aislin shoots back at the amused Koenma as if to say '_is she _always_ this bubbly??'_ as she is unceremoniously hauled out the large doors.

======================================================

_That was fifteen years ago. I never really hoped that Yoko would keep his promise and return after ten years; that would have been foolish. Once a spirit enters Koenma's domain, that spirit does not leave without severe compensation being made for that occurrence. Fate does not like having her weavings unpicked. I have had a couple of visits from old friends, mostly Mizu and the new Thief-King, that brash pup Ikazuchi, but those, like my real smiles, are now very few and far between._

_ So. This is where you came in. I have a match with Urameshi in a few hours, and so I will stop here for now. I do not wish to disappoint the boy by being rusty._

======================================================

======================================================

Once more aware of her surroundings, Aislin moves to refile Urameshi's folder that had been left at her elbow, only to find a page discretely left beneath her left elbow. It is a very dark violet, the typing a light cream. Surprise breaks through her neutral mask as the glacier-hued eyes scans the page with mild interest. "Well, well, how very, very fascinating. I wonder why Koenma didn't mention that Hiei Jaganshi is working alongside his new Detective. This should be very interesting indeed."

====

"A test?" A boy with slicked-back raven hair and sparking brown eyes gives the small ruler seated behind the large desk a look filled with trepidation. "What kind of test?"

"One of my 'measuring sticks' she calls herself. I've sent three other detectives after her and all but one of them came back empty-handed and almost as blue as Ogre."

"Why? Is she water or something?"

"Ice, actually, among a lot of other things." Hiei, who had been leaning against the wall, perks invisible cat ears and turns unsettling maroon eyes towards his 'employer'.

"Anyone I know?" he questions, voice empty of inflection. Koenma shrugs.

"Heck if I know, Hiei. I know for a fact I haven't dug up everything in your history. You've probably heard of her nickname though. Ever hear of a woman named 'Whiteout'?" Hiei and Kurama stiffen, but Yusuke and a tall orange-haired boy named Kazuma Kuwabara just start sniggering.

"Do I smear her across an ink-stain or something?" Yusuke snorts jokingly, only to be regarded with disgust by Hiei (who he had expected) and Kurama (who he did not).

"You are an idiot, Yusuke," Hiei informs him coldly. Kurama turns unsettled emerald eyes towards the two human boys, his expression lost in the mask he sometimes wears, a habit left over from his thieving days as Yoko Kurama.

"This is no laughing matter, Yusuke, Kuwabara."

Yusuke snickers. "Aw, come on, you two! Why should I be afraid of someone named after fix-it goop?"

"You're thinking of the wrong kind of 'white-out', Yusuke," Kurama explains quietly. "We aren't talking about any kind of processed chemical, we're talking about weather. A 'whiteout' is a blizzard so fierce and heavy that it reduces visibility to nothing and can kill someone when they're just inches away from sanctuary. She is the retired Queen of Thieves, no less."

"So, what, did you know her, Kurama?" Kuwabara asks slowly, actually using his brain for once.

The red-haired boy winces at a painful memory. "Yes, I did, once. We worked alongside each other for quite a long time, actually, and I do not believe she is aware of my change in species or status. And I would like to keep it that way," he adds, with a meaningful look at Hiei. The fire apparition merely gives one of his famous 'hn's and resumes staring off into space. Meanwhile Kurama turns wide, troubled eyes towards Koenma as the implications of Koenma's information actually sinks in. "And you have her in your _employ_?"

"Well, no, actually," Koenma admits. "I have her on parole. She's been 'working' off her sentence instead of spending it in a Reikai prison."

"Are you insane?" Yusuke bursts out. "You've got a woman like that on the loose??"

"I want to keep my prisoners alive until it is time for them to go free or to execute them, Yusuke!" Koenma snaps. "If I were to imprison her, she'd probably freeze everyone to death and walk out the front door."

"Only if they annoyed me," a calm voice counters flatly, and the younger people turn to the large door. A slender woman stands there, dressed in white wool with snowshoe-hare fur trim, looking utterly comfortable in the heated room. Her costume is not so out of place if one were to put her in the human streets on a cold winter's day. Besides the heavy fitted pants and fur-lined boots, her hooded coat has a built-in collar/shawl that ends at her elbows, and black fingerless gloves that encase her deceptively slender hands. Kuwabara instantly starts drooling and the woman gazes at him measuringly before looking over at Koenma. "Can I just freeze him now and save myself some annoyance?" Everyone face-faults, and Yusuke is the first to rise, snarling, "No, you can't freeze him!"

"Uh, I'd prefer it if'n you didn't," Kuwabara says weakly, and the woman shrugs.

"All right, behave yourself and I won't. Deal?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever!" Kuwabara says hastily, and Kurama groans in dismay, Hiei regarding the tall human boy in disgust. The fire apparition's face clearly asks 'can you get any stupider?'. Kuwabara and Yusuke turn to the red-haired boy questioningly. "What, Kurama?" The woman flinches at the name, and looks over at him like the others.

"Your name is Kurama?" she says in a pained near-whisper. A slight, brief inclination of his head is all the answer the ningen-fox gives her and she pales. "Then forgive me if I act untowardly to you. I knew someone once by that name."

Another nod before Kurama turns to Kuwabara and answers the orange-haired boy's question. "You did not make her define what 'behave' meant, nor did you put a time limit on the agreement."

"Which leaves the details of either quite vague," Aislin agrees, recovering her composure in a remarkably short time, and then she turns to the small fire-apparition and gives him a brief, shy little smile. "Hello, Hiei."

"Hello, Aislin. It's been a while," he replies calmly, nodding. She nods back, hands laced behind her back, all her weight balanced on one foot, the other resting on its toes behind the first's heel. He looks her up and down as though checking her health, and allows a tiny smile to curve his own lips. "You're looking well, given the circumstances."

That shy smile gets a shade bigger. "You, too, porcupine head. Never thought I'd live to see the say you'd be working for the good guys."

"You're one to talk, snowflake," he retorts almost playfully, and then they notice everyone but Kurama staring at them.

"So you do know her, Hiei," Koenma says in mild irritation. Identical blank faces are turned to him, and their shoulders lift in unison accompanied by "Hn."

"Oh, great," Kuwabara groans, "now there's two of them. Except one's a girl. And her hair's white."

"You tread on the line of misbehaving," Aislin warns him with no change in inflection or expression. "Mind your step." Then she startles Yusuke by turning to him and looking him over from head to toe, gaze never wavering, always measuring, and mildly curious.

"Take a picture," the boy mutters in her direction. "It'd last longer."

The corners of her mouth twitch again, the ice apparition amused at his audacity. "Indeed it would. You must be Urameshi-san. My new informants have been rather enthusiastic about you--you should be flattered."

"How's zat?" he asks suspiciously.

"For them to praise you as they do, you must have a skill level somewhere near mine. That's getting quite rare these days. They are well aware of my capabilities, and your predecessors have not ranked nearly as high in their opinion, nor are they happy with my single sparring match against the younger Toguro just after that foolish wish he made." Those turquoise eyes take on a faraway look as she remembers. "Hm. Come to think of it, he wasn't that much of a challenge back then. I wish I'd had a chance to fight him in the last Tournament, when he was at his best, but the Council never called me back for it. Ah, well, cannot change the past, can we? Let us look to the present, which is my match against _you_." Her eyes turn clear again and focus on him. "Lead the way, Detective."

Yusuke looks over at Hiei, disconcerted. "Yo, Hiei, is she always this random?"

The fire apparition snorts as though holding back a laugh. "Only when she's eaten a pixie." To everyone's surprise, Aislin turns faintly pink and looks dismayed.

"You wouldn't!"

"I might."

"I'd have to mention all those times that you--"

"All right! I'll keep my mouth shut."

"You're finally getting sensible." Sighing, Aislin turns back to Yusuke and tilts her head to one side in inquiry. "Are you going to fight me or not, Detective? If you aren't, I'm going back home where the temperature is somewhat more to my liking."

Automatically obeying the implied order, Yusuke's feet begin walking without telling his brain, so it's a second or two before he realizes that he's moving. He simply shrugs and keeps going once he does, but he looks over his shoulder to ask a question of the white shadow just behind him.

"So, I guess this place is a little warm for ya, huh?"

"Mm, not quite. You see--"

"Hey, ice-apparition lady," Kuwabara interrupts her, coming up behind with Kurama and Hiei trailing along in his noisy wake. "How do you know the shrimp back there, anyway?"

Briefly Aislin considers doing something about his newest breach of manners, but decides to answer his question instead. "Hiei and I have been allies for longer than I care to recall…wait, I never learned your name. But if I remember the applications Koenma gave me about the time Urameshi was signed on, you must be Kazuma Kuwabara, correct?"

"Yeah!" the orange-haired boy says cheerfully. "You mean you remember?"

"I remember your description," she replies dryly, with an utterly deadpan face, "which was, I believe, 'long on rei, short on smarts'." Yusuke bursts out laughing, with Hiei smirking in the background at Kuwabara's discomfiture.

"Now, now, Aislin. You shouldn't confuse the idiot," the fire apparition says with a hint of impish humor lurking in his eyes. "Using long words like 'description' will make his brain short out."

"Really?" she asks, beginning to show a bit more life. "What about you, porcupine head? Did you get a new notebook to write my bigger swearwords down? As I recall, you seemed to have trouble remembering anything longer than four letters."

"Hn. My memory is just fine, snowflake. What I'm worried about is how you'll fare against the Detective. You've been a thief and a monk for too long--I'll bet all your muscles have gone soft." Yusuke and Kuwabara--who is distracted from the beginnings of tantrum--stare as the two elemental apparitions walk past them, calmly insulting each other without so much as batting an eye at the worst of it all. Aislin walks the convoluted path through the offices and hallways with the ease of practice, and they arrive at the training arena without getting lost once and without anyone giving her directions. Inside, the white-haired woman tilts her head back and raises an eyebrow in mild surprise.

"Well. This place has certainly gotten bigger since I was here last."

"You've been here before, Moors-san?" Kurama questions lightly, and she nods with absentmindedness, too busy cataloging the changes to really pay attention.

"Once or twice, I believe, while Koenma was originally constructing it and again when he wanted me to test it. I think he's added at least twenty feet to the height of it, and a good thirty yards of diameter." She brings her attention back to earth and smiles again briefly. "So. Beginning. I would appreciate a warm-up session, if that is all right with you, Urameshi-san."

"Kurama?" Yusuke does not want to be tricked into an open-ended agreement like Kuwabara if he can help it. The fox-human shrugs.

"As long as she doesn't end something with 'agreed' 'bargain' 'deal' or the like as a question, I don't think you need to worry, Yusuke. She simply wants to warm-up, but does not want to make you impatient, yes?" he finishes with a rising lilt, turning it into a question for the slender ice-apparition.

"Correct, Kurama-san." Again, she winces, and asks him a question of her own. "Gomen ne, but is there another name you go by? I'm afraid that name brings back some painful memories." Yusuke and Kuwabara blink in confusion at their friend, who nods understandingly.

"The name most know me by is Suichi Minamino. Will that suffice?"

"Yes, and nicely, arigatou. Will you please be my warm-up partner?" Everyone blinks at the sudden switch in topic but Kurama simply shakes his head no.

"I am not so foolish as to go against the Whiteout, even in a sparring match. Perhaps Hiei will oblige."

"Hn," is the indifferent reply as the black-clad boy steps forward and eyes her in speculation. "Fine."

(_I'd forgotten how well Hiei can spar when he wants to…)_

The two elemental apparitions stand in the center of the ring, the others on the sidelines as spectators, Kurama as the referee, and watch each other warily. "Fighters, your weapons," Kurama reminds them calmly, and Hiei smirks at his opponent.

"Same old trick, right, snowflake?" Her reply to him is a flat-out glare and the rising of the hair on the back of her skull. Defiantly she brings one hand up as a fist, the other flat with the palm pressed against her fist's thumb. When she pulls her hands apart, a glittering blade of ice is formed in their wake, flashing under the bright lights when she swings it experimentally.

"Same old trick that has yet to break against _you_, dragon breath."

"Take your positions," Kurama commands them, stopping the new round of insults before it can properly begin, and the two settle into neutral stances, blades raised above their heads to shine under the lamps. When the two nod warily, he snaps out, "Begin!" and leaps back to avoid the broad sweeps of their swords and the voids of air that follow them.

Yusuke and Kuwabara can't even see their movements while the emerald eyes of Kurama dart back and forth, following the pair with utmost care. He highly doubts a referee with be needed to do anything more than call time when the warm-up is over, but he has also spent his entire existence planning for those kinds of doubts when they inevitably become reality.

A crater suddenly forms off to his left; a slim form rises from it, dusts themselves off, and flits back into the air with an annoyed 'hn'. That would have been Aislin, Kurama thinks to himself. Probably using Ice Armor as she usually does. Another crater, this one's made by Hiei, who growls as he reenters the fray. A few more craters and explosions later, the two stop and stand there, simply gazing steadfastly at the other.

Then a slow, wicked smile blooms on Hiei's face, and he offers, "Fire and ice?"

"And itching to slice," comes the wickedly-amused reply, and the two bring the points of their katanas to bear on each other's hearts. A globe of red-and-white power flares into life between them, rapidly growing until it reaches the size of a basketball as they pull the points of their swords towards the side. Kurama pales, and he quickly flattens himself against the ground, protecting his head with his jacketed arms. Yusuke and Kuwabara are not so quick to follow his example before the sphere implodes and sends shockwaves rippling across the entire arena, rattling the walls and creating a circle of crazed concrete below the place where the sphere had hung.

When Kurama raises his head cautiously, he instantly covers his mouth and nose with a piece of his tattered jacket to protect against the dust clogging the air. With a relieved sigh he finds most of his clothing intact; his jacket took the brunt of the attack, leaving his shirt and his pants only ripped here and there. Hiei and Aislin stand where they had before, actually grinning from ear to ear, blades resting against their shoulders. A few seconds more and the dust settles, the two combatants losing their smiles when an outraged screech echoes around the training area.

"HOW DARE YOU NOT TELL ME, YOU INGRATES! I KEEP YOU FROM THE DEATH PENALTY AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME??"

The two elementals scowl at each other and point accusing fingers. "You forgot to disable the cameras," they growl in unison, and scowl harder.

"YOU'RE _BOTH_ UNDER ARREST! I CAN'T BELIEVE I HAD KASAI AND AISU UNDER MY ROOF THE WHOLE TIME!! YUSUKE! BE USEFUL! DON'T LET THOSE TWO LEAVE!!"

"What's gotten the toddler in such a temper-tantrum?" Yusuke groans from his sprawl a few feet inside the arena wall. He climbs out, holding his aching head and fingering the rents in his clothes ruefully. Aislin shrugs indifferently.

"We forgot he didn't know about us."

"Who's 'us'?" Kuwabara manages, climbing over the wall and dropping onto the arena floor with a grunt. His sweater is in shreds, his shirt isn't far behind, but thankfully his pants are relatively intact. Kurama gets over his amazement and gestures grandly at the two still standing quietly at the arena's center.

"I'd like to introduce you to Kasai and Aisu, the second greatest thief-pair known in the Makai and Reikai. They've been on the most wanted list for nearly eight and a half centuries."

"Seriously?" Yusuke stares with new respect at the two small beings glaring at each other over the crazed ground between them and snarling. "I didn't think they were that old."

"Damnit, dragon breath, it was _your_ turn to shut off the be-damned security cameras! Now look what you did!"

"Me?? You're the one who forgot that that idiot didn't know about us!"

"What's that got to do with anything??" She practically minces over the broken ground to jab her finger into his chest. "_You_ the one who knows where every single camera is! Koenma's probably rearranged this place three or four times, and I have no idea where he's hidden the twelfth camera!"

"If you were paying attention we wouldn't have to deal with this in the first place!" He slaps her hand away and points his katana to her throat, to have it completely ignored.

"The attack was your idea! Don't go blaming all of this on me, you arrogant, stubborn, stuck-up hedgehog!"

"Dim-witted, opinionated ice-block!"

"Block-head!"

"Bakayarou!"

"Kisama!"

"Ikeike!"

"Prick!"

"Weakling!"

"Male chauvinist pig!"

"Che!" Hiei yanks his blade away and starts stalking off, looking utterly disgusted. "That's so inaccurate it's ridiculous!"

The three other males just blink while Aislin actually grins and sticks her tongue out at him. "Hah! I win!"

"You cheat."

"I have a lot of time to read," she corrects. Hiei is actually smiling, and the two humans boys are getting confused.

Kuwabara finally points in the pair's direction and looks over at Kurama. "I don't get it. They were biting each other's heads off a second ago."

"That's just how they are. I don't quite understand it myself."

Aislin turns her attention back to Yusuke and reverts back to a nearly emotionless state. "Well, Detective, before Koenma's weakling ogres get here to try and arrest Hiei and I, how about you and I have that match?"

"Uh…" Yusuke blinks and shrugs fatalistically. "Yeah. Sure."

Hiei walks over to the side of the arena and takes up a perch on an undamaged portion of the wall dividing the floor and the bleachers, Yusuke walking over to the ice apparition and settling into a defensive stance, ready to begin. The petite female nods in approval at the well-guarded pose before raising her ice-katana above her head and moving into an offensive position herself.

"Apologize to Koenma for me when you wake up," she says before disappearing. A heartbeat--a very fast heartbeat--later the hilt of her katana connects hard with the back of his head. Cursing and snarling, he staggers forward, whirling to find a rather startled but very pleased Aislin standing behind him.

"Geez, what the hell wazzat for??" he demands, rubbing the growing lump gingerly before cautiously shaking his head to clear the cobwebs. Aislin merely goes back into her stance with something akin to excitement sparking in her eyes.

"I have to say I'm impressed, Detective. It takes a pretty hard head to withstand one of my blows. That fact that you're still quite conscious speaks volumes for your stamina."

"More like stupidity," Hiei corrects her from his vantage point, making her chuckle and Yusuke glare. And then the lights go out. Literally. Every single light suddenly turns off, plunging the spacious area into complete darkness thanks to the fact that there's not even a window. Yusuke quickly sends his senses outward, trying to locate his opponent before she has a chance to strike, but this kind of thing has never been his forte.

His ears ring with a second casual blow to his head, deafening him to the faint sounds of wind moving around him, cold numbing his ears and nose and slowing him down that much more. He takes a guess and strikes off to his left, rewarded with a pained 'oof' and the sound of stumbling footfalls.

"Heh, not bad, kid," Aislin says from somewhere in the darkness. "Didn't see that one coming."

"Genkai used this same trick when she was pickin' a student," is the short reply. "Dark doesn't phase me much." A punch-kick combo connects, then her elbow slams into his jaw, the heel of her palm to his solar plexus. Gasping for breath against the last, Yusuke stretches and strains his abilities to find her. A whisper of wind behind him makes him whirl and snap his foot out in a powerful roundhouse kick. His whole body is jarred with the force of the impact, knocking him off balance but sending his opponent flying by the sounds of it.

"Very good," is a pain-filled cough a few moments later, sounding rather distant. "That actually _hurt._ Looks like I'll be able to--" A pained cry rises from her and everyone else when the lights are suddenly switched back on, half-blinding everyone and filling their visions with little colored dots. Yusuke blinks away the spots and searches for the white-haired spirit, finding her to his right and against the wall, bleeding from mouth and nose and directly beside a startled Kurama.

Standing in every entrance is a score of ogres, most of them carrying weapons and shields, none of them looking very happy. Aislin spits out a mouthful of blood and gazes calmly around her. "Guess we'll have to put the match on hold, Detective. Koenma-san has sent the half-time show."

Jorge steps forward, looking very authoritative and carrying a pair of energy-sealing cuffs. "Aislin Moors, a.k.a. Whiteout, a.k.a. Aisu, and Hiei Jaganshi, a.k.a. Kasai, you are hereby under arrest for--"

"Grand theft, breaking and entering, second and third degree murder, and resisting arrest," the two ex-criminals finish in unison, sounding extremely bored. The ocean-eyed woman straightens and gingerly feels her nose before adding, "We've heard it all before, baka. Now, shoo. You interrupted a match."

"Go on, guys, I got it all under control," Yusuke adds reassuringly, waving his hand at them in a dismissive gesture. "As you can see, I'm winning." He notices the extremely dangerous glare he's getting from both the small elementals, and inwardly winces. _Boy I'm in for it now_. But the ogres are beginning to look doubtful.

"I'll make you a deal, okay?" Aislin suggests reasonably. "You all go and wait somewhere with a nice view. I fight the Detective, and if he wins, you can arrest me and I go without a fight. If I win, we get to pretend you never found out about my third alias. Agreed?"

"NOT A CHANCE!" Koenma shouts from a loudspeaker. "You've got a rap-sheet as big as the empty space in Ogre's head to answer for!"

"So put me on another couple of centuries of probation," is the coldly logical reply. "It's not like all of these fools can defeat me, anyway." A few of the ogres are nodding fervently in agreement from their places.

"C'mon, Koenma," Yusuke adds in a wheedling tone, "our match was just gettin' good. You can't let it end there, can ya?"

"Can and will, Yusuke," Koenma snaps back. "With this new information I have a much better idea of her abilities, and you are nowhere near her level. You hear me, Yusuke? You're going to get your ass handed to you on a silver platter with crème broulet sauce."

"But I was winning, wasn't I, Ais--Aislin-san?" Yusuke looks around, bemused to find his opponent gone without a trace except for a few spots of blood. "Damn, Hiei, she's faster than you. Hiei? Well, hell. They're both gone."

"THANK YOU CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!!" Koenma nearly screams. "FIND THEM, now!!" All the ogres salute and file out, one remaining at each entrance as a guard. Yusuke walks over to his remaining friends, hands tucked behind his head, looking very disappointed.

"Stupid Koenma. The fight was just gettin' _good_, too."

"Patience, Yusuke," Kurama sighs. "I suspect you will be able to resume shortly." Right on cue a white blur sweeps around the entrances, leaving every single ogre very much unconscious and the entrances sealed with heavy sheets of ice at the same time as a black blur zips around the beams above them. The black blur plummets to the ground within moments and resolves into Hiei holding fistfuls of wires just as the white blur stops in front of Yusuke and becomes a mildly annoyed Aislin.

"Got all the cameras, Hiei?" Aislin asks quietly, and the spiky-haired male holds up the wires and nods.

"There's not a working camera for five city blocks around here," he informs them in a low voice. "If you want to finish the match, Detective, I suggest you do so quickly."

"Well, okay then!" Yusuke says cheerfully, popping his knuckles and walking back towards the center of the ring. With a mildly amused smile and a slight shake of her head Aislin follows him, creating another blade to replace the one she seems to have lost.

"Like I was saying before I was rudely interrupted," she states calmly, "it looks like I'll be able to use more of my power than I thought." Yusuke just snorts.

"I _knew_ you weren't goin' all out. How much were you usin'? Ten, twenty percent?"

"Five," Hiei informs him flatly. "And this is based off assumptions that come from knowledge more than a century old. I doubt she's gotten weaker."

"You doubt correctly." Aislin shoots him a light glance before returning her gaze to the cocky teen before her. "On my word. Begin."

And the two vanish from everyone's sight. Well, almost everyone's; the only reason Hiei can see them move is because he's using the Jagan eye. The other two have to settle for flashes of rei collision and the explosions from blocks or strikes connecting.

"Come now, detective, surely you can do better than that?" Aislin questions Yusuke mildly as she practically dances around the arena, having no trouble with the rough terrain or the maintaining of her incredible speed. Yusuke treats the gaping holes and torn up concrete like an obstacle course, the slabs acting as springboards and cover.

"Hold your horses, wouldja?" he mutters back, glancing left and right to keep her in his view, brain working furiously to come up with a way to beat this opponent--who is suddenly showing a whole hell of a lot more skill than Hiei. A couple of swear words later his brain settles to the task, processing rapidly. And the first thing he notices is that though she's in a heated room, and actually exerting herself, the coat she wears has _yet_ to come off. Or even be loosened. _And if she's part ice apparition, then she should be able to withstand the touch of her own weapon, but she's wearin' gloves._

He reverses direction with a screech of sneakers on gravel to avoid a strike with the flat of her blade to his shoulder, hands coming up automatically into a guard position in a desperate effort to avoid the blow. She sends him weaving and bobbing with more combinations, her tiny smile growing more and more pleased when he begins to prove himself the challenge she desires and has waited for. Yusuke's plan finishes forming and when she offers him an unwitting opening in her defense, he attacks. Lightning-fast punches blur centimeters around her upper body and sides, but he 'misses' his strike every time.

"Does that foolish excuse for an attack have a purpose?" she asks in curiosity when he leaps away again, breathing a little harder from the exertion of performing his attacks while dodging all of hers. Her eyes widen in frightened dismay and she stops in mid-motion as her coat falls off of her body, sliced at the shoulder-seams, side seams and arm-seams, but otherwise intact. Kurama and Hiei both gasp in deep concern when she reenters stumbling into their normal view, her upper body clad only in a thin grey tanktop, katana falling to the ground and shattering into a million brilliant shards that rapidly melt under the glare of the stadium lights. Shivering violently, arms wrapped around herself, she falls to her knees and bows her head in anticipation of her opponent's final strike.

Which doesn't come. She manages to lift her head again to see Kurama virtually sitting on Yusuke and about ready to spit nails before a heavy black cloak is wrapped around her and she is whisked away through the maze of corridors, the sounds of crumbling ice fading behind them. Closing almost colorless eyes, she rests her cheek against whipcord muscle and whispers three words before plummeting into the depths of unconsciousness; "Thank you, Hiei."

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Gomen ne: a form of 'I'm sorry'

Kasai: fire

Che: shit


	8. Chapter Eight

Element Panther: Nope, sorry. I have the whole thing worked out and it's not changing. Besides , those two being alike is the whole point as to why they're not going to get together. It'd be like asking your sibling to go on a date with you.

Winter's Rose, Chapter Eight

==================================================================================

"Geez, Kurama, what the hell was that for??" Yusuke snarls when the fox-ningen finally gets off his friend and starts stalking off.

"For once I will agree with Hiei's original assessment of you." Kurama's voice is very low, and very dangerous. "You are a fool. Do you even realize how _close_ you just came to killing Aislin?"

"What?" The black-haired human stares at his friend, who is now vibrating with suppressed fury, the fox-ningen's ears nearly pointed, mane of hair bushed out. Kuwabara is just looking at the two of them in confusion.

"Use your head for once, Yusuke!" Kurama snaps. "Obviously you noticed she kept her coat on, but did you even bother to guess _why_? As an ice apparition, these kinds of temperatures are on the edge of being uncomfortable, but she is not _just_ an ice apparition!"

"So wouldn't that mean that this wouldn't bother her?" is the meek, confused reply. Kurama keeps himself from smacking the male upside the head with great effort, and contents himself with a bone-chilling snarl.

"I suppose we should have told you this from the start to prevent just such a thing," he finally admits, choking his anger back and letting his hair smooth itself out again, starting to pace around in a small circle as he talks to help vent further. "Due to the rather substantial mix of her bloodlines, Aislin's inner body temperature and the way she feels atmosphere is _reversed_. Her body temperature is normally somewhere around forty to thirty degrees Fahrenheit or lower, and drops when she is ill. Cold to us is hot to her, and what we feel as hot is cold. In short, Yusuke, by removing her jacket you exposed her to _near freezing_ temperatures."

Yusuke and Kuwabara both blanch and look towards the doorway that Hiei had taken Aislin through several minutes before, just as Koenma and a group of fidgety ogres come through it.

"Crap," Yusuke mutters in resignation. This time, Kurama actually agrees with _him_.

=====================================================

_During the time that I was unconscious, I Dreamed. The Void-crafted dreamscape consisted of a flat, featureless plain blanketed in snow, with no sun or moon, but lit brightly all the same. I stood ankle deep in the powder, and felt absolutely nothing. Not heat, or cold, or any emotion of any kind. It was…peaceful._

_ Unfortunately like most dreams before it, it didn't stay peaceful. A memory walked up from out of nothing and stood only a few feet away, smiling just like he used to, hair blowing in a breeze I couldn't feel. _"You're not paying attention again, koishii,"_ he told me gently, those words he used to say all the time when I was with him. _"You've got your guard up too tight and you can't see the forest for the trees. Pay attention, or you're going to miss out."

__

"Nothing new,"_ I replied flatly. _"I've missed out on a lot of things since you've been gone. Why did you have to leave me?"

__

_That smile that I loved so much just grew a little bigger before he replied, _"Because I had no choice. You think I'd really have left you if I had a say in the matter?"

"It would have been like you."

"Not for this. Not for us. And I'm not going to be gone much longer. I promise. Just look sharp, or I'm going to go right past and you'll never realize it."_ And with that careless wave, he started to vanish back into the air, the last thing to disappear his warm, loving smile. And after he was gone the pain hit. The loneliness, the feelings of betrayal, and the knowledge that even in a dream, he still lied. I could feel, then. The warmth of snow under my bare feet, and the tears streaming down my face._

"Yoko…"

=====================================================

Ping. Ping. Ping, ping, ping, ping. Hiei looks over at the slender figure lying on the ice a few feet away and blinks in shock as tears slide from between long pale lashes and change into midnight-blue and black gems that chime musically as they bounce away. The concerned fire apparition has brought them to one of their old hiding places; a small cave nearly one-hundred fifty miles away from Koenma's palace, or where the palace would be if this was the Reikai instead of the Makai. Half of it had been fitted for the survival of one such as himself, the other gleams with a thick layer of ice for her, all of it set up centuries ago.

In all the time that he has known her, he has never once actually seen her cry for sorrow--joy and laughter, yes, and the frustration that borders on rage, and once for shared pain--but never from her own sorrow. But now her tear-gems roll off the low slab that serves Aislin as a bed, bouncing almost into Hiei's reluctant reach. When one happens to bounce against his foot, he delicately picks it up and scowls unhappily at it. From the rare tears he's shed himself over his long, long life, he knows these colors as near-suicidal sorrow and pain. And she has shed so many.

The pings slow, and then stop, just before aquamarine eyes open and blink in confusion at the sight of a frozen roof above her. Then memory comes visibly flooding back and she sits up to look around for him. "Hiei-san?"

"Over here, Aislin." He keeps himself perfectly still as she reorients to her surroundings and to her body again. She'd gone into the Void for a brief time, and he knows it always takes a few moments to reattach soul to body.

"Hiei. Is this where I think it is?"

"If you think it's our old emergency camp, yes."

"Oh. Good." Shaking her head, she starts to swing her legs over the slab's edge, and snatches her hand away when a couple of her tear-gems slide against it. "Che!"

"Calm down. You were Dreaming." She gives him a startled look that dissolves into weariness and she shrugs as she replies.

"It won't have been the first time. I almost always go there these days." He gazes at her with heightened respect as she buries her face in her hands and rubs, smearing away some flesh-colored substance and revealing a greeny-blue demon mark right where a Jagan would be.

"Your dreams have become the Void…?"

"Yes, and I want it to stop," she mumbles into her hands. "I'm tired of going there, all it brings is pain." Gesturing her over, he gives her a reassuring smile and jerks his head as emphasis. Surrendering, she quickly passes through his area into the circle of his arms and the welcome heat of his aura, settling into his lap with the wariness of a feral cat. "It's a good thing living heat doesn't feel like everything else," she mumbles, beginning once more to drowse.

"You know, Kikan-chan, you have always been stubborn," Hiei comments mildly as he begins to rub her shoulders, concentrating on getting overly tense muscles to unknot under his skilled fingers.

"So've you," she counters with no heat, allowing him that contact and slowly letting the phantom pain and the stress melt away. "Guess that's why we call each other 'mirror', isn't it? We're very alike."

"Yes, except you didn't get thrown from the Island because you were male and of fire."

"No, I got thrown off because I was a mutt and a bastard-child and I kept getting into fights and breaking rules." A small sigh as a particularly stubborn knot is smoothed away. "In terms of our culture, you've missed out on nothing, Kikan-kun."

"I just missed out on family."

"I keep telling you that Yukina could care less about _what_ you are. She just cares about _who_ you are. She's pretty wise that way."

"Hn."

A faint hint of a smile. "Was that a 'you're-right-but-I'm-too-stubborn-to-admit-it hn' or a 'I'm-not-even-going-to-dignify-that-with-an-answer hn'?"

"Hn," he repeats, this time looking and sounding more exasperated and amused despite himself. "Neither."

"Well then, tell me and I'll leave you alone about it." The amusement disappears, and his eyes turn solemn.

"I can't tell you. And I can't tell her. There are reasons, but I can't tell you those, either." He gives her shoulder a friendly pat and stands, hauling her up with him and handing her a pure white, heavy wool-plush cloak that had been on his far side. "We'd better get going. If we want to keep this place a secret emergency base, it would be a good idea to keep the child-ruler from finding it."

"Weapons?"

"Got mine. You make yours, remember?"

"Not just katanas, baka. We might as well grab a couple of our specials while we're here."

"And clean up the tear-gems," he prods her gently, and is rewarded with a scowl.

"And clean up the tear-gems."

A minute or two later, the two step out into early winter sunshine, small clumps of snow huddled in the shadows of the massive trees around them, and the two small beings decked out in thieves' finery.

Instead of brilliant white hair streaked in wine, a black-haired, blue-eyed woman stands with daggers tucked in each boot, daggers on her belt, and daggers strapped to her wrists beneath the all-concealing white cloak. Her clothing is blue tight-fitting pants tucked into heavy grey boots, her shirt is sleeveless and charcoal grey, and a green silk scarf is tied as a headband around her forehead. Her companion is a young man only slightly shorter than she, with his hair hidden under a brightly-colored headscarf and wide purple eyes slant upwards in a cynical expression. His clothes are simple and of local style: a warm long-sleeved light wool shirt colored green, belted close to his body over durable brown loose pants tucked into sturdy boots. He carries his daggers the same way as she, but a well-used katana is tied to his belt with a bit of bright red silk.

Both have gold hoops in each ear and several necklaces around their throats, and actually smile at the showing they make. "Been a while since we wore this stuff, eh, Yan?" the woman questions airily. She is given a chuckle and a nod in return.

"Long while, Yin. Let's get to the village and see how many of our agents are still there."

"Let's. I'm getting hungry, and that's not a common occurrence!" Laughing softly, the two blink from normal sight, leaving nothing behind to mark their presence but two faint pairs of footprints just outside the cave. A few moments later, a soft breeze blows a few old leaves across them and they vanish as silently as their makers.

====

(_This isn't the first time we've had to run, Kikan and I. Seems like most of our lives have been spent in running. He and I met long before we decided to partner up, in the forests one day while we were still children, and we parted ways for the last time in a tavern much like the one I am sitting in now. No one would recognize the little hell-cat I was back then for me now…I would hope.)_

"What are you writing?" Aislin looks up as Hiei slides himself into the corner table's empty seat across from her, royal purple eyes curious as he glances at the leather-bound sheaf of papers under her pen.

"A journal of sorts. As you can see, I've written quite a bit in it." Lowering her voice, she adds a question. "Any sign?"

"No. They haven't gotten this far. And I doubt they're used to me smiling. Or dancing," he adds wickedly, making his table-mate laugh while she puts away her journal and accepts the stein he holds out.

"You _are_ a fine dancer, Yin. I'd forgotten that. Seems like I've forgotten a lot of things." Hiei looks over at her in concern at the sudden sadness he hears in the simple words, to find her staring once again out into space. He waves a hand in front of her nose to bring her back, and she returns to the present with a jolt and an automatic grab for his wrist.

"Stop thinking so hard. You-know-who's probably got a few telepaths looking for us, and we don't want to attract any more attention than we have to." Nodding in agreement, she concentrates instead on the contents of her mug, eyebrows rising in surprise at the first taste.

"Hey, this isn't half bad."

"Why do you think I picked here? Our informants are mostly undiscovered, and the booze is good. Drink up, it's probably the last decent wine we'll have for a while." Following his own advice, Hiei takes a long swallow from his own mug and savors it all the way down. As if that was a signal, another apparition appears beside the table with a chair and a hopeful expression.

"'Scuse me, but do you mind if I sit here? Other tables are pretty crowded." A lie, since there are plenty of tables with open seats, but the right phrase to keep his head.

"Go ahead," Aislin tells him cheerfully. "More the merrier, eh, Yin?"

"Right, Yan." With a relieved sigh the stranger sets his chair down and slides into it with boneless grace. As soon as he does, Aislin offers him her mug and he takes a quick sip before handing it back and settling in with a hardback book in his clawed hands.

"'Bout time you two showed up," he hisses under his breath while slowly scanning the page before him. "Brat's been tryin' real hard to root us out. He's got Chime, Bell, and Rin-rin." Turns the page.

"Any others?" Hiei whispers from the corner of his mouth.

"Eyein' Note, Rhyme, Melody and Rhythm, but the rest of us are clean. Where've you _been_?"

"Layin' low, stupid," Aislin retorts quietly, but with plenty of heat from behind the mouth of her stein. "We'd all be swingin' if us two were caught."

"Couple centuries is a bit long to lay low, Clapper."

"Zip it. And the name's Yan, now." And so the discreet conversation goes, information being given and a new deal struck, sealed with a couple of flawless tear-sized jewels that shine a deep blue in the lamplight. When he leaves, a slender little vixen takes his place with nary a word, brilliant yellow-gold eyes daring them to refuse her.

"You're at my table, you two. But since you were so nice to buy me a mug of wine, I'll let it pass." Sullenly Hiei hands her his mug and she takes a satisfied swallow before putting her feet up and, to every appearance, falling asleep. Shooting her annoyed glances the two converse in normal tones to cover the whispers the blue-haired vixen gives them now and again. When she 'wakes up' she leaves with a small pouch of tear gems tucked into her boot when Hiei shoved her feet off the table, and several key bits of news lighter.

Paying for their drinks with a worn silver coin, the two rise and leave, a few subtle gestures telling the three remaining agents to meet them outside. One by one they slip into an empty alleyway to huddle in the shelter of a deep alcove, to quickly trade news and new orders before splitting up again that much the wiser and richer.

Hiei and Aislin wander around the market area for a bit longer, listening and learning some of the local stories and buying a couple more baubles to finish off their costumes before strolling back to the small but comfortable inn and the single room they've rented for the night. They take turns washing up before sliding into the comfy and large bed together, falling asleep before the moon had finished rising in a crystal-clear sky.

====

"Wake up, you two! You're under arrest by orders of Koenma-sama!" The small room is flooded with light at the flip of a switch by a uniformed apparition, making the two sleepers flounder awake and blink in the painful glare.

"By the love of all that's holy, what _are_ you babbling about?" Aislin demands sleepily in a new voice that still sounds real, raven hair tousled and messy from slumber and the rude awakening, blankets pulled up to cover herself. "It's barely three in the morning."

"You are charged with grand theft, breaking and entering, second and third degree murder, conspiracy, and resisting arrest," the ogre informs them curtly as several more ogres in uniform pour into the room and surround the bed. Hiei has buried his head under the pillow and pulled the blankets back over his nude body, muttering something uncomplimentary about ogres in general.

"You're an idiot," is the irritated reply to that, as Aislin follows her companion's example and attempts to go back to sleep. The two are abruptly uncovered and hauled to their feet, handed blankets, and are hustled out of the room at double-time. Which the two ignore, shuffling lethargically in front of the rear-guards, practically leaning against each other to keep from falling over. Or back asleep.

Koenma stands in the lobby with the three remaining members of Team Urameshi, looking utterly furious and rather tired himself, but mostly pissed off as the two are presented to him by the lead ogre. All of them blink in confusion at the sight of a black-haired young woman and a crimson-haired young man, both of which look too sleepy, confused and annoyed to care that they stand in front of royalty in nothing but bedding.

"Hey, Yin," Aislin mumbles to her companion, "who's the baby? And where are his parents?" And she promptly restrains herself from laughing at the child-ruler's face.

"I am King Koenma, as you should very well know, Aislin," the small male finally grits out, and is rewarded for his self-control with disbelieving sniggers from both of them.

"Hey, Yan, the ruler of Spirit World's a toddler," Hiei snickers in a voice very much unlike his own but sounding utterly unfeigned.

"Wonder how many nannies he's got to change his royal diapy-wipey," Aislin laughs back while Koenma just keeps getting redder and redder and Yusuke and Kuwabara roar with laughter.

"Koenma, come on, it ain't them," Yusuke manages after a moment. "I mean, these two don't sound or act like them at all--hell, they don't even look like them! We've seen dozens of apparitions their heights walking around today; what makes you so sure this is them?" Hiei self-consciously runs a hand through his tousled but still very flat crimson-colored hair as though it is a habitual gesture, which it is anything but when his hair spikes up on it own normally.

"And she's standin' right here in a perfectly warm lobby and not even shiverin'," Kuwabara adds, yawning tiredly. "Didn't Kurama tell us that Aislin would feel cold?" And she would be, if she wasn't staying warm with the help of Hiei and a careful manipulation of his rei.

"Perfectly warm to you, maybe, but you aren't the one standing in nothing but a blanket," Hiei mutters while trying to hitch his covering up to the point where he virtually stands in a cocoon. "We could've at least gotten our shirts on."

Kurama steps forward and lightly smells the air around them, frowning in concentration as he uses his nose to separate their scents. "These two do not smell like Aislin or Hiei, Koenma-san. They smell like cat and water apparitions and wine, nothing else. There is no hint of dye or our friends' kis, nor of any chemical besides the ones you use to clean jewelry. And Hiei, to my knowledge, has never had a piercing, even in his ears."

"One last check," Koenma tells all of them sternly, and beckons for someone in the back to step forward. The two don't even bat an eye when Koenma's strongest telepath, the female wind-apparition named Shikyo, steps forward. They've been using screens of perfectly innocuous thoughts of two childhood friends wandering around aimlessly in search of interesting things to do and see, that are so complex that the memories include bits and pieces of their make-believe childhoods, fuzzy as memories that long ago often are.

"Nothing of interest, Koenma-sama. They are Yin and Yan, named themselves after they left home, and are nothing more than they seem. You might want to remember the boy, though--from what I have seen he is a promising swordsman, or will be if he survives another decade or two."

"And her?"

"A fair hand at painting and jewelry, but the palace artisans have had more time to develop their skills. Neither hold even the potential of power Aislin and Hiei possess." The woman blinks at the sight of the two small apparitions braced against each other, both already fast asleep again and that contact the only thing keeping the blankets in place. Sighing, Koenma gestures to the ogres and walks out, followed by the boys and most of his subordinates.

Two ogres carefully pick the two up, making sure to keep them decently covered, and carry them back into their room to set them on the bed before leaving. The ice and fire apparitions wait for nearly ten minutes before opening their eyes and resettling themselves, grinning all the while at the great trick they've played on everyone before once again falling back into sleep, the room heated by Hiei's subdued rei.

===

Next morning Hiei awakens to find the bed beside him empty, and the windowsill looking out over the quiet village occupied. Aislin sits there in perfect Hiei-style, a robe drawn close around her, staring blankly out at the lovely view with eyes empty as a deep lake. Hiei frowns in concern; this is the second time she's withdrawn into her thoughts like this, and if she keeps it up they'll be caught. In front of her on the sill sits her journal, filled with her small, neat handwriting and memories. He startles when she speaks quietly into his mind without any inflection whatsoever.

_/I'm going back./_

"What?" Hiei scrambles off the bed and manages to get all the way to her side without tripping on his concealing blanket or falling over from general morning discoordination. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm tired of running, Hiei. I'm going to go home, write the ending into my journal, stash it away for someone smart to find, and then let Koenma catch me and do whatever." Perfectly calm eyes focus onto his dismayed face--a hint of amusement colors them a lighter green for a breath. "Nearly a thousand years is a pretty good run for anyone, don't you think? About time for it to come to an end."

"What brought this on?" Hiei demands, real fear beginning to bite his spine and turning it to ice.

"Memories," she replies with total peace. "Memories from a decade or two ago, and a promise someone made to me that got broken. Don't worry so much, Kikan, I'm not going back for another day or two. Koenma's watching my lair, I'll bet, and I want to finish what I started." Her fingers reach out to gently shut the simple book, lingering a moment over the front page embossed with a white rose sprouting from a pair of jewels before picking the whole thing up and putting it away into her pocket-space. "So," she says with a bit more warmth, turning to face him as her eyes regain signs of life, "what should we do for breakfast?"

====

"'Scuse me," Hiei speaks politely to the woman tending the front desk of the inn, his newly-ginger hair shining wetly from a mid-morning shower, "have you seen my friend? Girl 'bout my height, black hair?"

"Oh, aye," the fluffy-haired dog-demon says enthusiastically, "she went out yonder to the pond fer a bit o' skatin'."

"Skating?" Now Hiei is curious. He didn't know his friend knew how to skate.

Judging by the silent crowd gathered around the pond when he gets there, she knows how to skate very well indeed. The surface of the pond glitters in the pale sunlight, no doubt helped a bit by Aislin's affinity to ice into something strong enough to bear her small weight, except where the sere remains of cattails and reeds poke up near the edges. And when he catches sight of the person dancing on the ice, he stops dead in his tracks, pressed against other spectators to keep off the slick surface of the pond.

Someone he's never seen before glides across the frozen surface, someone very pale and very much iridescent in the light that seems to follow her as she spins and jumps to music only she can hear. Gauzy fabric covers her torso and flutters against bare arms, lithe legs and the tiny feet strapped into a pair of figure skater blades. Translucent hair flows like a heavier silk down her back and swings out to the sides when she turns, wrapping her in a cocoon for a breath in time.

Eyelids adorned with long lashes stay mostly closed but blink open now and again to reveal eyes as blue as a husky's, rimmed in cerulean with a cat's slit pupils. Most stunning of all are the pair of shimmering dragonfly wings flashing open now and again. Hiei can't deny her the peace he can see cloaking her, but they need to move on soon or Koenma will find them again with better resources. He doesn't feel like seeing the inside of a Reikai jail again anytime soon. So with great reluctance he whistles softly at her as she passes and she slows and skates back to stand in front of him.

"Hi, Yin," she says meekly, and he shakes his head in amused exasperation.

"You can't resist showing off now again, can you, Yan? Come on, we've got a lot of ground to cover today and not a lot of time to do it in." He offers her his hand and she accepts it, hopping onto solid ground and out of her low-cut skates at the same time--not that he can understand how, but he figures it must be along the same principle for the sleeves of his usual black cloak.

"I just had to do something like that," she sighs as they walk, the wings disappearing, her hair and eyes darkening, and her clothes molding into that sleeveless gray shirt and midnight blue pants. Her skates transmute into her boots and she takes a moment to hop awkwardly along while pulling them onto her feet. "I can't explain why."

"What was that form you had, just a second ago?" he asks in curiosity as they walk into the inn and towards their room. "I've never seen it before."

"It's a form I don't wear very often, that's why. It's my…well, it's my faerie form."

"Your _what_?"

"Keep your voice down, baka. Don't need to wake up the nocturnals. I'm part faerie, and so are you. It's why we're so short--although I think you'd have figured that out by now."

"That explains the full moons," he mutters to himself, scratching the back of his neck. Aislin gives him a faint smile and a nod just as they walk through their door.

"Sure does, doesn't it?" The second the door closes, her mood once again shifts for the darker. "Hiei, I'm sorry, I can't do this anymore. I thought I could, but I can't."

"Do what?" he asks her, startled.

She waves a hand in an expansive gesture at everything in general. "This. Life. Everything." Her tone is once more toneless, though she does put some emphasis in her words. "I can't do this anymore. Back at Koenma's, that was an act, me trying to make life resemble what it did when we were kids. It was fun, I'll admit, but it isn't enough." Her cloak is in her hands and around her shoulders before he realizes it, as though time simply stops for a breath. "I have to go, Hiei. Now. I'm sorry." And before he even has time to protest, she's gone, leaving nothing but the scent of winter winds behind her.

He tries to mindspeak her, but simply ends up slamming into an unbreakable glass wall and has to turn back. Growling now with growing fear, his power begins to dance along his skin, burning away the illusion of flat orange hair and leaving his head fur to spike as it is supposed to, the fire apparition sending his thoughts on a razor-sharp thread to a certain red-haired fox.

_/KU-RA-MA! Your ice-fox is going to do something stupid again!/ _

_/Hiei?? What are you--/ _

_/Shut it, fox! Aislin just ran out on me after giving me some bullshit about not being able to take life anymore! I don't know where she's gone, but we need to find her, fast!/ _

Real fear colors the ningen-fox's next thoughts. _/Did she mention anything before that?/ _

It takes a frantic second before Hiei recalls their conversation this morning. _/ She told me she was going to finish her journal, stash it somewhere, and let Koenma catch her again./_

_/Did she say where?/ _

_/What does that have to--/ _

_/Damn it to hell, Hiei, _did she say where_??/ _

_/She said home, I think!/ _ The fire apparition is startled when relief tinges the fear.

__

_/I know where she's going, then. Meet me by the portal and I'll lead you./ _

_/And Koenma?/ _Hiei can't resist the verbal jab.

__

_/Hang Koenma,/ _ the red-haired boy snaps._ /If it's a choice between him and her, I choose _her_ every time./ _

===

Hiei meets with his friend just as the lithe teen leaps through and closes it with a bang, panting from exertion. "Damn, Yusuke's gotten almost as fast as you, Hiei."

"Nevermind that, where did she go?" Hiei demands. "I've already checked the place Koenma gave her and her old apartment, and she isn't there."

"Of course not," Kurama says as if it's obvious while they take off running again. "Those aren't home. What is the one thing you know about homes from all your years as a thief, Hiei?"

The reply is thoughtful. "There's only one home. Everywhere else is a lair."

"And what is the one place she spent the longest time at?" Those emerald eyes glitter at him expectantly as realization dawns on the kajihenge's pixie-ish face.

"Yoko's Lair."

===

Five hours later, a muscled and scarred lightning-wolf demon perks up from guard duty at the main door at the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. That's about all he has time to register as two slender forms breeze past him, the only colors visible a blood-crimson and black.

"Hey, Ikazuchi!" the taller of the two blurs calls as they run down the corridor. "Nice to see you haven't wrecked the place while I was gone!" And they streak round the corner while the odd sentence percolates through the demon's brain.

"…while he was…?" Bing! The penny drops. The Thief-king's head whips around and he stares incredulously down the way the two went. "_YOKO??"_

Heads are jerked up from tasks all over the caves that are in earshot of their leader's shout, like hounds who have just heard a hunting call they never thought to hear again. "Yoko?" some murmur to the others. "Yoko's back?" others ask in startlement. Hiei looks over at his friend while they sprint down busy corridors and ones that are nearly deserted, everyone too startled at the idea of their old leader returning from the dead to challenge two people who are in an obvious rush.

"Popular, aren't you?"

"Just keep running, Hiei," Kurama grits out, saving the rest of his breath for running. His new body really hasn't worked up the stamina that his old one had and it's been strained by the five-hour marathon that they've already run. Neither of them can stop in time when ice suddenly looms ahead of them, blocking their path; they both impact hard, bouncing off and falling to the floor with the air knocked out of them. Hands grab them by their shoulders and heft them back onto their feet, whacking their backs to reopen stunned air passages and steadying them as the world stops spinning.

Kurama blinks open dazed emerald eyes to find Ikazuchi with his face directly in front of his, the demon's butter-yellow eyes narrowed as he examines the intruders to his lair. "You," he commands, poking Kurama in the chest, "what did you say?"

"I said," the boy gasps--more from the impact than the poke, really--and straightens to stare at the much bigger demon, "'Hey, Ikazuchi! Nice to see you haven't wrecked the place while I was gone.' Or have those wolf ears stopped working?"

"That's what I thought you said," the new Thief-King says grimly, before grinning and sweeping the boy up in a rib-cracking hug. "Damn, Yoko! Scare me half to death why doncha! I 'bout near had a heart attack when you blew past! Who's this little bit of shadow with you?" he asks, setting Kurama back down on his feet and eyeing an indignant Hiei.

The fire apparition brushes off the helping hands and shoves his hands into his cloak pockets. "Hiei."

Eyebrows go up. "The Hiei Jaganshi?"

"Yes, that's him," sighs Kurama. "Look, Ikazuchi, we're in a rush. Has Aislin come here at all?"

"What, you haven't guessed by the ice? She came walking in nearly three hours ago, told everyone to just leave her alone, and that she was going to your two's old quarters. That," a gesture indicates the ice, "popped up about ten minutes later. No idea what she's done, but hey, she's S-class to our B-class and down. I'm the highest rank at A-class, but I can't go against her when she's in one of her moods, yanno?"

"I know." Kurama turns to the ice and reaches a hand out to feel the frozen, slick surface. "She's bonded it with the preservation spell like she used to do with her sculptures," he says finally in a worried voice. "I can't break it as I am now or in my old shape." He bangs his fists several times against the unyielding surface in a vain attempt to break it somehow, and with pained cries two apparitions grab him and pull him away, exclaiming over the raw skin oozing blood on his hands.

With an anxious sigh liberally dosed with aggravation and exasperation, Hiei shoos them all several feet back with one of his glares and sits down, pulling the bandanna away from his forehead. "What the--holy shit!" Ikazuchi yips as the smaller apparition's Jagan eye is revealed and slides to examine him. "You really are the Jagan!"

"Shut it and don't touch me," Hiei snaps, settling into the lotus position and taking a deep breath. "I'm going to try the Void."

==================================================================================


	9. Chapter Nine

Winter's Rose, Chapter Nine

=================================================================

_She floats in nothingness, no stars, no lights, not even her signature platinum powder dusting around her to relieve the stark blackness. Nor does she feel pain, or joy, or anything else beyond a familiar, infinite patience that reminds her of a sword she once stole. This feels like that kind of patience, the kind that would hold throughout eternity without fading. It's nice._

_But something comes to disturb her, as it always does. She wants to be a mere Dream, she no longer wants to be a Dreamer. But the dragon slithering angrily into her space is not going to let her off so easily. "What do you think you are doing??" he snarls at her, a twinge of annoyance marring that peaceful waiting that had been numbing her pain._

_"I am waiting," she says finally, her Truth no longer what it used to be. The dragon stares at her, exasperation making every scale stand on end like an enraged cat's fur._

_"For_ what

_"For a fairy-tale ending."_

_"There's no such thing!"_

_Her reply to that is serene, laconic. "Than I guess I'll be waiting a very long time then, won't I?" Hiei growls in frustration, one foreclaw tugging at one of his headspikes like he would do with his hair in his real body._

_"How do we melt the ice?"_

_"Find my fairy-tale."_

"_Damn it, Aislin, stop being so damned cryptic! Just tell me, for Kami's sake!"_

_"I did. Find my fairy-tale. It will tell you how to melt the ice."_

_With one last snarl, the dragon turns to go, growling tersely over his muscular shoulder, "You've always been too stubborn, the both of you!"_

_"Who is we?" she asks curiously, able to feel that much in the emptiness she's created._

_"You and Kurama!"_

_"You mean me and Yoko," she corrects with mild irritation. The dragon turns and puts his enormous head directly in front of her, maroon eyes almost as big as her kitsune body._

_"No, I mean you and the red-haired idiot beating his fists bloody on your ice-wall, you stupid snowflake!" The fox uncurls from her pose and pricks her ears forward and to the side in an expression of puzzlement._

_"But why would Minamino-san do that?"_

_"Because _he is Yoko_, stupid!!" The fox gasps, and Hiei has two seconds to register her shock before the Void-scape shatters_.

===

Groaning, Hiei feels himself topple out of the Lotus, every muscle screaming at him to stretch before they break when familiar hands catch him and nudge him upright before letting go. He opens bloodshot wine-colored eyes to find Kurama leaning worriedly over him, bloodied hands already neatly healed by--presumably--a very shy little mouse apparition off to their left who is putting away a few brightly-colored vials in her bandoleer.

"You all right?" the red-head asks in concern, and Hiei has to swallow twice before his throat is lubricated enough to let words slide out.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just gave her the shock of her life, though." Alarm flashes through green eyes, turning to wariness and suspicion.

"And what did you do to do that?"

"Told her who you were."

"Hiei, I am going to wring your scrawny--"

"Hey, it was the only way for me to get her out of the Void, okay? She's part Oracle demon, Kurama-baka. That means the Void is like anywhere else to her; she can come and go freely as long as she has some kind of lodestone as a locator device."

"My earring," the fox murmurs absently, fingering an earlobe that has never felt a needle in memory of one that has. The anger drains away, leaving resignation. "She's going to have my ass for this."

"So long as she's alive to do it, I'll help her," Hiei rumbles back.

"Fine. What do we have to do?"

"That's what I don't get. We have to find her 'fairy-tale'."

"What, you mean her journal?" Both boys whirl to face Ikazuchi, eyes glittering dangerously.

"What did you say?" Kurama purrs, steel beneath the silk.

The lightning-wolf shrugs. "You should know, Yoko-san. She was always talkin' about how if she ever got around to writing a journal or her memoirs, she'd call it 'A Koorime's Fractured Fairy-tale'. Remember?"

Kurama blinks as his old self resignedly hands over the memory, and his lips curl in wistful reminiscence as it replays behind his eyelids. "Oh, yeah. It was because we'd always poke at her about all those hunches that ended up turning out right. Called her our little seer."

"And she'd laugh and poke us right back about being the thick-headed wanna-be heroes the seer is supposed to help all the time," Ikazuchi agrees readily. "So. Does that give you a good starting clue, oh great once-leader?" A cream-blonde eyebrow raises in sardonic query and Kurama has the grace to look somewhat ashamed.

"Don't look at me like that, Iku-kun. It wasn't my idea to have a hunter nearly kill me the night before we were supposed to come back."

"Don't do something like that again and we'll call it even, Boss." The lightning-wolf shrugs and raps his knuckles against the ice, creating a pinging sound that is rather musical in nature. "So, what are we gonna do about your white rose, eh, Yoko?"

"Koenma wants to know if you thought about trying her filing system," a somewhat ragged voice suggests cheerfully from near the end of the corridor. The other thieves part to reveal a tired Yusuke bracing himself against a wall, other hand propping him up by balancing above the knee. "Hey, Hiei."

"Hn. What are _you_ doing here, Detective?" Hiei asks coldly, and receives a cheery grin from the human boy in return.

"Just a message from Koenma. He said 'criminal or not, she's my friend too' or something like that. He's worried about her too, I think. Me, I just wanna have a real match against her, and I can't do that when she's gone and sealed herself in a couple tons of ice. So I thought I'd help."

"How did you find this place, human?" several of the thieves want to know, and Yusuke shrugs.

"Not too hard. Kurama, shake out your shirt." The wary fox-human does so, and a small grey chip falls to the floor. "Tracking beacon. I got the only control. Didn't want Koenma to get the idea he could send in a buncha folk and clear ya'll out or nothin'." The grin on the boy's face can be described as nothing else but mischievous when he tosses the control box into the air and punches it into powder. "So, like I asked: didja try her filing system back at her 'lair'?"

===

"Nothing," Hiei says in disgust several hours later. A monstrous pile of paperwork lies stacked everywhere but on the desk, and three frazzled boys regard it with high distaste. "All that, and there isn't even a clue as to where she hid it."

"Thought fer sure it'd be here," grumbles Yusuke, plopping ungracefully down on the earth-tone rug and contemplating the waste of the last few hours. "She keeps just about everything else in here, why not the stupid journal?"

"Because it'd be too easy," Kurama groans, rubbing at his face with hands that faintly tremble. "Aislin always did like making things difficult."

"She got bored of the Games too easy," Hiei grumbles to himself, tucked safely away from the papers up on the windowsill, eyeing the nearest stack so balefully it is a wonder that it does not burst into flames. "That's why, the stubborn snowflake."

"Think!" Yusuke commands without realizing it. "Where would be the last place we'd look for a nine-hundred plus years old koorime diary?" They think for a few minutes, Yusuke still sitting, Hiei still perching, and Kurama wearing a hole in the rug as he paces. Three heads lift with sudden breaths. "The Vault!" all three shout in excitement.

Wrong! As they discover another several hours later after having searched King Enma's vault from top to bottom. Exhausted, they drag themselves into the special quarters reserved for them and go into their respective rooms to sleep like the dead.

Hiei, like Aislin before him, has the pleasant experience of having his dreams turn into Dreams as his soul subconsciously soars into the Void.

_"Aislin!" the dragon roars in worry, having searched for what feels like hours without finding even a speck of that annoying dust always following her around, his limited strength beginning to wane. "Aislin!"_

_A ball of cold fire blooms into existence beside him, burning away to form a thin body clad in a loose, filmy slip that resembles an oversized night-shirt._ "What??" _she demands irritably, rubbing at one glazed green eye and glaring daggers at him. "For Ice God's sake, porcupine head, it's three in the fucking morning. Go back to your body and go to sleep, for cryin' out loud."_

_Hiei can feel all his metaphysical scales--which had been standing almost on end in fright--smooth back down to their normal contours with a faint hissing. "Thank Kami; I thought you'd gone and killed yourself."_

_She rolls her eyes as though her interrupted activity have been obvious. "Oh for the love of--Hiei, I wasn't suiciding, I was _Sleeping_! You should know that perfectly well since you've read the same lorebooks as I have!"_

_"Eh?" Again, as he so often finds himself around this puzzling wisp of a demoness, Hiei is thrown off balance by the statement and must put himself to rights again, matching up this fact with that one and so on. And as he does so, memory supplies the correct lore entries. "But...we thought you..."_

_"I was," she admits in a long sigh, folding her legs so that it appears she sits on a high stool with an equally high top rung and resting her elbows on her knees, chin cupped in hands. "But then you said that Kurama was also Yoko, and that changed the rules. I only got tired of the small-scale Games everyone else plays, Hiei. Doesn't mean I never set a few in motion of my own."_

_"And what are the rules of this Game?" Hiei questions warily, answered by a shrug._

_"They're still changing, so I haven't worked it out all the way out again yet." She raises a warning finger. "But, I do know this. You have one mortal year to find my journal before I begin the process of fading again, Hiei. One mortal year of Sleep for me, a year of searching for you. Not," she adds thoughtfully, "that I expect you to take a whole year. If that boy really is my Yoko, then he'll find it long before that."_

_"Then why a year?" he demands._

_She breathes another long sigh, stirring up dust all around her and blurring her outline for a brief moment or two. "Are those ears on top of your head merely for decoration, or do they actually work?" she grumps before softening. "Because I truly am tired, Hiei. Tired near unto death. Let me Sleep, let me Dream and be Dreamed, and if in one mortal year you have located my journal and have puzzled out my riddle, then you will have me back safe and whole. My word of honor for it."_

_"What about Koenma?"_

_That old, familiar wicked smile blooms. "That all depends. If the crimson-maned boy really is Yoko--and I'm not saying he is or isn't, mind you--then let Koenma _try_ to catch me!" She winks at him before yawning and stretching, her body once more unfolding into the familiar shape of a many-tailed arctic fox and curling into a fluffy ball of white. "Now let me Sleep, Hiei. I have every expectation of seeing you when I wake up."_

_And as he had done to her once very long ago, Hiei finds blue-white bands snapping around his wrists and ankles, hauling him will he, nil he back into the solidarity of his physical body and the waiting arms of death's gentle sister.  
_

_===  
_

Next morning...

Groan. Flinch away from the very bright light creeping around his heavily draped window. Lift hand to feel face, make sure that he's once again solid instead of misty as his thoughts. "Ow. Sonnuva..." he goes on in that vein for several minutes until he runs out of pithy phrases, and only then does he bother to squint open one gritty mulberry eye to gauge what time it is.

The other eye opens and both are blinked to double-check their proper functioning at the sight that stands at the end of his bed. "Yo...ko?"

"Welcome back to the world of the waking," the tall silver fox says sardonically as he steps forward and offers his friend a helping hand to sit up. "Judging by your creative language, I'd have to say Aisuhana dragged you into the Void for a brief chat."

Every part of him complaining that it would like to keep lying down for a couple weeks longer, he accepts the hand and is pulled into a sitting position, the world deciding at that point to go for a swim without him. Moaning, the small kajihenge flops back and pulls his multiple black-covered pillows over his head in an effort to stop the spinning. "A little too long of a chat, it would seem. Are you going to be all right?"

"Third bottle to left, second shelf," Hiei replies thickly, hearing the feather-light footsteps of the kitsune heading in the direction Hiei had pointed at from beneath his sanctuary. Returning, the vibrant presence presses a small round object into Hiei's waiting hand and without looking the black-haired boy sits up, downs the pill and reburies himself without opening his aching eyes.

"Well?" comes the patient query, and Hiei waves a hand for a little more time as the headache medicine goes to work silencing the drums and soothing away the nausea.

"She didn't drag me, I went by myself," he finally says, sitting up slowly to let the world adjust around him. "I don't know how long it took me, but I found her again."

"Why did it take so long?" Yoko asks in curiosity, tilting his head to one side. Hiei swallows experimentally, decides that the fruit he'd grabbed on the run last night won't be making a reappearance, and chooses his next words carefully.

"Those of us who...visit...the Void generally make a sort of...territory...where we spend our time doing whatever we go there to do. The last time I...talked to Aislin...she shattered the Void-scape she had made. So I had to go looking for her," he finishes with a shrug.

"And what did she say?" is the anxious question from the nerve-taut male standing beside the bed. Hiei decides that maybe he feels like living after all and looks up, eyes filled with knowledge he doesn't really want.

"She said we have one mortal year to find her journal and to solve the riddle in it before she starts to fade again. Between now and then, she's going to be Sleeping."

"But how? Even for her, it's impossible to go a year without food."

"You aren't listening, Yoko. Not sleeping, like what we're supposed to do every night. Sleeping, like the Un-named Ones down below. Like...what was that term that idiot used when he was babbling about homework? Cryogenic hibernation. It's how the Sleeping Ones do it. They wrap themselves in their own power and drift into Dreams." Hiei feels frustration boiling at the lack of proper words. It's been so long since he read the lore on the most powerful demons existing that Sleep at the bottom of Demon World, that he's forgotten the archaic words they used that nevertheless explain everything.

But Yoko's brilliant amber eyes clear with understanding, and the confusion is replaced with respect and no little awe. "She must be a Kyubi by now with that kind of strength."

"If it were possible for a fox to have more, she'd have them, baka-kitsune. You forget: the more a bloodline is mixed, the stronger it grows. Were it not for my Jagan, I would be on par with her abilities. And even with it, I am not far behind."

"I have strength, too," Yoko says, sounding mildly offended. Hiei smiles wryly, reaching for the shirt lying rumpled at the end of his bed.

"Not our kind of strength, fox. I was A-class by the time I was five years old."

Wearily the kitsune concedes the point and slumps down onto the edge of the bed, looking drained and tired. "So, then, great one. Where do we look first?"

===

"Of all the sneaky places to put it," mutters Yusuke, idly flipping through the thick journal and letting his eyes pick out interesting bits. "Trust her to really put it in the last place we'd look." It is two months after the search for Aislin's journal had begun, and the sought item is safely in Team Urameshi's hands--currently in its captain's hands, to be specific.

"How was I s'posed to know she left it at my place?" Kuwabara asks aloud for the hundredth time, glancing up from the sprawl of paperwork scattered in front of him on the floor. "'S not like anyone ever tells me anything, anyway."

"A book protected with a rei-keyed lock is something worth mentioning, idiot," Hiei says harshly from his usual perch of their main room's windowsill. "But what do you do? Carry it around in your bookbag for five weeks."

"Hey," the orange-haired boy says defensively, "for all I knew it could have belonged to Shizuru. It'd be like her to come up with something like that."

"He's got a point there," Yusuke mumbles distractedly, before his lips pull back into a wide grin and he starts laughing. "So that's what happens when she eats a pixie! I gotta try that the next chance I get!"

"Don't," groan Hiei and Kurama in unison. "She's completely unpredictable in that state," Kurama adds warningly. "It's like having a catnipped tiger by the tail."

The journal had been noticed by Yusuke one afternoon near the end of a study session, while Kuwabara had been packing up his books. It had tumbled out when the clumsy teen had lost his grip on one strap, tipping everything onto the floor and earning him a disgusted look from the drowsing Hiei on the windowsill. Laughing, Yusuke had helped his friend scoop up the textbooks and papers, but his hand had fallen on the leather-bound volume instead and he'd picked it up in curiosity.

"Hey, Kuwabara, where'd this come from?" the black-haired boy had asked, flipping it over and back again, examining the embossed rose and jewels on the cover and the complicated seal on the back. His friend had looked up from the scattered items and shrugged.

"Dunno. Just popped up in my stuff a couple weeks ago. Figured it was probably Kurama's or somethin' and it'd just gotten mixed up with my junk. If it ain't his and ya want it you can have it." That was when Yusuke had noticed a strange bit of knotwork on the left side, where the book opened, and poked it with an injudicious fingertip. Zap!

"Ouch! What kinda knot is this??" That had woken Hiei up and made him look over in mild inquisitiveness. His eyes had widened at the sight of the book and he'd snatched it out of Yusuke's hands before the teen had time to realize his hands were now empty. Then both teens got smacked upside the head by an upset fire apparition.

"You idiots! This is Aislin's journal!" And both had received a long lecture on knowing what an item looks like before searching for it.

So now they sit around in their quarters at Koenma's, looking for the riddle she'd hidden in the pages of her memories and coming up blank. Again. "Dude, Kurama, does this girl always do this?" Kuwabara asks the red-haired fox.

"Yes!" Hiei snaps in frustration, about ready to go bang his head on a wall--not that he'd admit it. "Every single time! This is her favorite Game, I swear!"

"We must allow her her small pleasures, Hiei," Kurama chides gently, busy writing a report for school. "With all the grief she's experienced, she doesn't have many of those left."

"So we allow her to torture our brains instead?" his friend demands, quivering in indignation. Kurama simply gives him that enigmatic, utterly _Yoko_ smile, never looking up from his writing.

"It makes our minds all the sharper for it, and we have approximately nine months in which to find and solve the riddle. I'd say we have time." Hiei merely growls and goes back to sulking while staring out at the landscape beyond the window.

"Hey, Kurama?" Yusuke is frowning at the book as though it had just insulted him. "What's this she's talking about?" Kurama looks up from him work with a puzzled expression.

"What do you mean?" Yusuke points at a particular passage and reads aloud.

"'It seems that sometimes my life can be represented solely by a ballad and a blade. The ballad as the depressing parts and the blade as a tool of my chosen profession.'"

Kurama and Hiei blink at him. "Repeat that, please?" Yusuke does so, and Kurama holds his hand out for the journal, which Yusuke willingly hands over. Reading carefully, Kurama is unable to find the sentence on either page. "Aisuhana, you sly little vixen," Kurama murmurs, grinning in reluctant admiration. "You planned this a long time ago, didn't you?"

"What are you babbling about now, fox?" Hiei demands, with Kurama turning to look at him with gleaming green eyes.

"She put a species-specific rei lock on the riddle, Hiei. I can't find the sentence Yusuke just read aloud." Hiei face-faults, falling off the sill and onto the floor in disbelief and frustration.

"I hate that girl sometimes," he grits, getting to his feet and rubbing the back of his head, wincing at the knot forming underneath his spiky hair. "Even for a Game, she makes things needlessly complicated."

"So what song and what pointy thing are we looking for?" Kuwabara asks, balancing a pencil on his upper lip from boredom.

"I'm not certain about the song, but I'm certain we already have the blade," Kurama chuckles, pointing to the katana strapped to Hiei's hip. "If I'm not mistaken, Hiei, that is the one she gave you for a birthday present, is it not?"

"Hn," the apparition replies with an affirmative tone.

"Then despite it being yours, it will undoubtedly have a trace of her on it. That would be the physical requirement of the breaking spell she uses for the preservation spell on the ice. I remember that much of her style," Kurama tells them, confidence fluffing up his long ruby-colored hair and making his eyes glow. "She always works with a verbal and physical component for her spells. Now the question is: which song would she be referring to?"

"I can think of one." Everyone looks over at the black form still staring out the window, as if uncertain that he'd actually spoken. Hiei glances out of the corners of his eyes at them for a split second before firmly staring out into the distance, unease stiffening every line in his body. "There was a grief-song, written by a particularly good musician a few years ago. He found out about what happened the night you left for the Ningenkai and wrote a song about it."

"Did anything happen to the musician?" Kurama asks knowingly, and Hiei shrugs.

"He was good enough that she just left him a reminder to watch who he wrote about in the future." One crimson eyebrow goes up.

"He must be excellent if she let him live."

A ghost of a smile curves Hiei's lips the faintest bit. "His name's Talayasen."

"Dude, that Irish bard-guy?" Kuwabara asks in shock. "I thought he died hundreds of years ago!" Startled looks are aimed his way and he starts growing defensive. "Hey, I actually listen in class, which's more'n I can say about this slacker!" Yusuke looks affronted.

"Hey! Koenma, the old hag, and my mom keep me hoppin'! I gotta get my sleep somewhere!"

"And you wonder why your grades are so dismal," Kurama sighs, shaking his head slowly in disapproval. "To answer your question, Talayasen is a fairly powerful bird apparition, of the finch variety, I believe. He spent a few decades in the Ningenkai to learn the Celtic style of music."

Hiei nods slightly. "Aislin has been something of a fan of his music for most of his career, if I remember right."

Kurama sighs. "So likely as not, the song you're thinking of is probably the correct one. If not, I know many, many ballads that would describe her nicely."

Yusuke gives a long, drawn out sigh full of frustration and mild concern. "So. Now we just hafta wait nine more months before we c'n find out if we're right."

===

Nine months later:

"Dude, you know she tried trainin' me last night in my sleep?" Kuwabara asks, the four boys standing in front of the ice-wall blocking the way to Aislin's quarter's. "Weirdest thing. She kept tellin' me; 'only reason you're weaker is because they haven't trained you enough' or somethin' like that."

"I pity you if you ever have to go through one of her training sessions in real life," Ikazuchi tells him seriously, standing off to one side. "She's really scary when she wants to be."

"Chhh, no kiddin'," the orange-haired teen grumbles back. "Thought she was gonna bite my head off a couple of times."

Ignoring them, Yusuke turns to an edgy Kurama and tense Hiei, lopsidedly grinning. "Time to find out if we're right, right?"

Nodding, Hiei steps forward, unsheathing the Manzanaki katana given to him so long ago and driving it deep into the ice. Complicated scrollwork shimmers into view around it, forming something that resembles a filigreed keyhole. Stepping back, Hiei lets the golden-voiced Kurama step up, taking a deep breath before beginning. Several of the watching thieves close their eyes to better listen to their ex-leader and his new singing voice as he sings the ballad known throughout the Makai as 'Winter Rose and Silver Thief'.

_When the fires of dawning_

_Are ages away;_

_And the starlight and moonlight_

_Have come out to play;_

_When the forests and meadows_

_Are all deep asleep;_

_A lone Winter's Maiden_

_Shall lone vigil keep._

The scrollwork glows golden with the first word, twisting and growing brighter as the song continues, Kurama oblivious to it all as he sings with his eyes shut to concentrate better. So he doesn't see the wall of ice beginning to disappear, though the others do. Several of the other thieves sing along with the first chorus, voices rising in harmony with the molten voice of their ex-leader

_(White Maiden keeps watching_

_And waiting for him;_

_Bright fox will keep fighting_

_And do naught but win.)_

_For the love of a Thief-King_

_Who's long from his home,_

_And the promise he made her_

_When he left to roam:_

Tears streak unnoticed down the ningen-kitsune's face as he remembers that promise he'd made and broken, just like he'd broken another promise to bring Kuronue home safe.

_'Not Death nor her ruler_

_Can keep me from you--_

_I'll be back by the dawnlight,_

_With prizes no few.'_

_(A jewel Thief-king's downfall _

_And necklace of gold;_

_Hunter ended his charmed life_

_And death took a hold.)_

_But his promise was broken--_

_He did not return._

_He was slain in the midnight_

_She later did learn._

_Now she waits for his coming_

_No matter how long;_

_Winter Rose and Silver Thief--_

_This is their song._

_(For thieves stealing is living_

_But comes at a price;_

_Their lives can be forfeit_

_And gone in a trice.)_

The singer opens pain-filled emerald eyes to find the ice vanished as though it never existed, not even a wet spot on the floor of the passageway. With hesitant steps Kurama walks forward, having forgotten the presence of everyone else with the thought that in a few moments he will have his ice-flower back in his arms. A few long strides and he disappears into his old rooms, Hiei firmly blocking the way to everyone else with his retrieved sword.

"Hiei, what're you doing?" Yusuke questions sharply, met by the calm gaze of the shorter apparition.

"I know what waits beyond that door, Detective. To Sleep, a demon or apparition must take on their true form, free of all illusions and disguise, and with beings like us our true forms are to be seen only by those we trust most. You have not earned that privilege. Not yet." Subsiding, the Spirit Detective and the others watch as Hiei draws a barrier in the air with a wave of his hand and vanishes from sight beyond the pristine hanging furs covering the doorway.

He remembers the only other time he had ever seen her real form, and smiles in reminiscence. They'd been about ninety, drunk, and showing off. They'd dared each other, and each had taken the dare, and had never shown each other since. They hadn't needed to. The fire apparition goes far enough for one good look at the scene and leaves again, letting his fox have privacy for this quest. He returns to standing guard in front of the door, arms crossed over his chest and feet spread for balance, his barrier flickering behind him. Yusuke tilts his head to one side in front of the slender youkai, remembering.

"So that green-skinned body with all the eyes isn't your true form, huh?"

"Certainly not."

"Ever gonna show us your real form, shorty?" Kuwabara asks, and receives a very amused, deadly glance in return.

"If you ever see my true form it will mean two things, fool. One; you are about to die. Two; because I am about to kill you." Looking nervous, the two teens subside and take several healthy steps backwards. Hiei smiles behind his expressionless mask--he still has the touch. He spares only one glance for the furs behind him, remembering the sight of a tall silver fox standing before a mirror of ice with the wrong reflection.

===

Kurama stands in front of the small alcove that had once held a marble statue of the foxes' patron goddess Inari, but which now holds something very different. He has changed into his Yoko self--despite what he'd led Koenma and the others (except Hiei) to believe, he has always been able to change back and forth; a fox is a shape-shifter after all--because the wards on the rooms' entrance wouldn't have allowed him in otherwise. And with trembling fingers he traces the outline of his beloved's new face.

Suspended behind a thick layer of water-clear ice is Aislin, stripped of any disguise as Hiei had told Yusuke and the others. On either side of the alcove and leaning in relaxed poses are two sculptures; his fingers follow the smooth jawline of the statue on the left delicately.

"Hello, Kuronue," the fox murmurs to the smiling face. The other statue is himself, wearing a cocky grin as though daring the flesh-and-blood version of himself to fail this. Nodding back, Kurama turns once more back to the sight of the real Aislin.

Her thin body, never very muscular to begin with, has slimmed down even further, adding inches to her height instead and lengthening her limbs to match. Her face is slightly more pointed, framed by pure white locks that tumble in a frozen fall down her back to just below her shoulders, the streaks having changed into shimmery wines, peacock blue and green threaded with gold. Around her neck rests Kuronue's pendant, on the same old chain.

Wings sprout from her shoulderblades, shrunk and folded against her shoulders in rest, thickly scaled as dragons' wings should be but with soft body-feathers uncurling against their roots and alternating with the vane-scales colored pale, pale blue. About half of those feathers are barred in a pattern of soft grey, mixed in with pure white ones. Soft, rounded fox ears colored pale cream sit on top of her head, above her human-like pair that still come to short sharp points like arrowheads--in her left lobe the Tear of the Rose gleams like fresh blood. Nine tails curl around her bare legs and the space behind her, colored the same cream as her ears and tipped in inky black, shaded with the faintest pattern of wolf-brindle in more grays.

Long white lashes rest on milk-pale skin, veiling the ocean-hued orbs beneath, but it is what is above her eyes that draws his attention and makes the dog-fox gasp in shock. Framed in the glittery peacock blue of her demon marking--which has forged new marks in the shape of rounded lightning bolts on her cheeks below her eyes--a sapphire blue Jagan gazes steadfastly at him from her forehead. The instant his gaze is caught by it, darkness swallows him with relentless jaws.

===

"_Okay, that was new," Kurama groans, sitting up and putting a hand to his head before looking around, jaw dropping as he takes in his new surroundings. If he didn't know any better, he'd swear he was in space. But no, if he's in space, he wouldn't be able to breathe. If he's actually breathing._

_"Ah, and so he catches on," a sardonic voice says from a few feet away. Kurama turns, and finds a very large Arctic fox watching him with knowing turquoise eyes, seated Sphinx-like in a low circle of platinum dust. "Welcome to the Void, Yoko Kurama." On top of the nuances she and Hiei had agreed upon centuries ago there are new additions: leather and the musty scent of old books, the spice-soap the human boy prefers using, clean hair and the indefinable taste of mortality._

_"Aislin," Kurama breathes, and the fox blinks at him as the nuances of her name sweep around her as they did once before. Snowcones and plain ice, hearthfire, wool, fox musk and fur, winter's clean crispness, the sharp taste of mint and rosemary. Layered on top of them is the sweet taste of sugar, exotic fruits, the musky scent of raptor feathers and the spiciness of hot peppers--one of her favorite foods--and something indescribably wild._

_"You really are Yoko, aren't you?" she asks in a tiny voice, sounding wistful and hopeful and determined not to be all at the same time. "Even though I never brought my beloved here, that was the way he always spoke my name." Looking down, Kurama finds himself once more in his human body but dressed in his favorite outfit from his old life--a beat-up sweater bleached into gray and loose blue pants without hems, the trailing threads tickling across bare feet._

_"Aisuhana, I _am_ Yoko," the young man says firmly, the atmosphere ringing in their ears as the reality of this Truth. "I just happen to be something more, now. Part of me is mortal, just like you." She rises from her pose and takes a hesitant step towards him, entire body trembling. "I'm sorry, beloved. I broke another promise to you, but it was one I never, ever meant to break. I'm really home." The world blurs for a moment and he stands once more in his original body, arms open with his familiar gentle smile baring very white teeth._

_With a joyful cry she flings herself at him, a cloud of her dust rising and engulfing her before she leaps from it in human form and landing in his embrace. He closes his eyes as everything spins around him, and he lands on something solid.  
_

_===  
_

Opening his eyes again, he finds himself once more back in his solid body, with something different. Clinging to him for dear life is his beloved, weeping tears of joy that fall as pure crystal drops that chime--not just ping--as they hit the stone floor. Yoko looks back up to the place where she had Slept to find it empty, only the statues still in place but this time kneeling with heads raised and brilliant smiles on the frozen faces. So this is real. Smiling a smile made of equal parts relief, protectiveness and possession, he wraps his arms around her and simply breathes.

A while later--a space of time that feels at once only an instant long and a millennium--Aislin breaks the hug and steps back, wiping away her tears with a little laugh. "I guess I needed that," she says weakly, and smiles more strongly when Yoko possessively runs his hands through her longer tresses in wonder. Her dress--which he hadn't noticed before but he definitely likes--is a light creation made of something silky and gossamer, swirling around her knees and leaving her shoulders and arms bare but for two thin strips of bunched sheer that keep the dress in place. To him, she looks utterly breath-taking.

"I didn't know you had one of these," Yoko tells her gently, one fingertip tracing delicately around the Jagan's glittering blue outline. Startled, Aislin shuts her normal eyes and looks even more surprised when she can still see Yoko and the hand he holds up.

"Neither did I!" As if that acknowledgment is what it had been waiting for, the Jagan closes and seals, the peacock blue mark thinning and returning to a teardrop shape. Aislin blinks once or twice, reaching up to touch her mark with uncertain fingers. "It's gone?"

"Resealed. I think you'll need to talk to Hiei about opening and closing your Jagan, koishii." Pure delight suddenly blooms across her face, literally lighting the room up a few shades as she regards him with new wonder.

"You're real. I'm not dreaming, right? You're really here."

Laughing, Yoko leans down enough to plant a kiss on her lips before picking her up and spinning in a circle. "I'm real, all right! I'm really real!" He slows and stops, but doesn't put her down, leaning over and nibbling the closest ear--the one with the earring--with affection.

"I missed you so much, my heart-thief."

"And I you. Come on!" he laughs, bouncing her a little and making that new smile grow wider. "Change into your human form so I can go show off my prize to everyone!"

"Since when have I been a prize?" she asks indignantly, lightly punching him on the shoulder to emphasize her displeasure. He steals another kiss before grinning at her.

"Since I had to steal you away from Death herself. You're all mine, aisuhana. Nobody gets to keep you but me until you say otherwise!" Laughing, Aislin vanishes into her platinum dust and reappears as her regular self, but with the longer hair and colored streaks remaining the same. At his happy but questioning look, she shrugs and grins.

"I know you liked it best when my hair was longer. Think of it as a present." Yoko laughs as he strides out, carrying her bridal-style to keep her as close as possible.

"What? You mean having you back isn't enough?"

=================================================================

No, this isn't the end--quite. We still have an epilogue.


	10. Epilogue

Winter's Rose, Epilogue

==================================================================================

"Class, I'd like to introduce you to our new exchange student, Moors Aislin. Be nice." The teens filling the numerous desks fall silent as a petite but stunning pale-haired and pale-skinned girl walks in, wearing the winter version of the girls' uniform despite it being nearly ninety degrees outside. Light-turquoise eyes framed by two streaks of vermilion scan the room casually, then alight on a certain crimson-haired boy sitting near the back smiling like crazy. Stepping up beside the teacher, the girl bows politely and smiles cutely--making every other boy in the classroom melt.

"Konnichiwa, minna-san. I'm Aislin and it's very nice to meet you." Everyone choruses various hellos back, and the teacher once more cheerfully waves them all quiet again.

"Okay, okay. I need someone to show our newbie the ropes around school; any volunteers?" Numerous hands shoot up, but Aislin only smiles and taps lightly on the teacher's shoulder, whispering something to him when he bends down to listen. He straightens up and gives her a knowing smile before looking back at the class; specifically, the ecstatic Kurama. "All right, change in plans. Since Aislin here already knows our resident genius Suichi, he's been volunteered." The other boys of the class groan in dismay as Suichi stands and beckons her over to the conveniently-empty seat beside him, which she happily sits in and smiles at him as the teacher begins his lecture.

"What are you doing here?" he whispers to her as the teacher talks on.

"I'll tell you later, 'Suichi'," she replies with a wink. Grinning happily, the two turn their attention to the man drawing intricate diagrams up on the chalkboard.

===

"Koenma figured this'd be a better idea than him trying to catch me all the time," Aislin tells him during lunch, the two having somehow escaped his fanclub and her new one by hiding up on the roof and locking the access door behind them. "And since I get to be with you almost every day without constantly having to make excuses, I'm not complaining!"

"So you're going to pretend to be human, like I am?" Grinning, he swipes the bite of sushi she'd been about to eat and swallows with an appreciative grin. "Mm, you're a good cook as always."

"Meanie." The koorime sticks her tongue out and manages to get a bite of her own lunch without another attempt from the fox to steal it. "This form takes a lot of energy for me to maintain, I'll have you know," she informs him grumpily and wagging her chopsticks scoldingly under his nose. "No food stealing or I'm gonna bite ya."

"Noted," Kurama laughs. "Are you living in the Ningenkai now or still in the cottage?"

"Still in the cottage," she sighs. "Botan gives me a ride to the portal every morning."

"When is she picking you up?"

"Oh, whenever I give her a call." And the white-haired girl holds up a familiar looking device: a com-pact, otherwise known as a little communicator that looks like a makeup compact but with an image screen and signal-pad instead of mirror and powder. "Heh-heh, I'm gonna make some trouble for Yusuke. Wanna watch?" Nodding in agreement, he scoots closer so that he can hear better as she punches in some random-seeming combination on the dial-pad and holds the 'pact up. In the few days since she's been awake, her personality has once more bloomed into the mischievous sprite that he remembers instead of remaining the ice-cold Queen of Thieves she had been during her last match with Yusuke.

"'Lo?" Yusuke's image pops up, looking startled. "Oh, hey. What's up?"

"Is Keiko-san with you?"

"Huh? Yeah, why?" Giving Kurama one of the most wicked grins he's ever seen from her, she molds her expression into one of pouting displeasure and pins Yusuke with her best 'outraged female' look.

"'Cause you promised me you'd take me to the movies last night and you never showed up!"

"_What?_" comes a furious voice from offscreen, and the confused Yusuke has no chance to defend himself before Keiko whacks him hard on the head. Instantly the com-pact is yanked from his fingers and a pissed Keiko glares from the screen, her face turning to confusion at the sight of a laughing Aislin and Kurama, leaning against each other with the koorime's mirror bouncing up and down.

"Eh, heh-heh-heh, gomenasai, Keiko-san," Aislin giggles, straightening up and beaming at the human girl. "I felt like getting someone into trouble and Yusuke was the best bet. Lemme see what he looks like, will ya?" Smiling in understanding, Keiko angles the viewscreen to show Yusuke sprawled on the roof of his school with a dizzy expression and large lump on his head. Aislin and Kurama break into fresh peals of laughter, a couple of green tear gems pinging onto the roof beside the koorime and glinting in the afternoon sunlight.

The bell chooses that point to ring, and Aislin hastily snaps the com-pact closed, scarfing the rest of her lunch and grabbing the few tear gems while Kurama picks the access door open again. Still grinning crazily the two pelt down the narrow stairs in a playful race, Kurama telling his slender companion that there is someone he wants her to meet after school.

===

"Kurama, are you sure about this?" Aislin asks as they approach his human home, the koorime having already deduced who the person is that her beloved wants her to meet. Kurama keeps his reply to a simple reassuring smile as he leads her up the walk and to the front door, opening it with a cheerful 'tadaima!'.

"Okaeri!" a woman's voice calls back, and Aislin gulps hard as a middle-aged woman with long black hair comes into view, drying her hands on a dishtowel and smiling serenely. "Suichi, I'm glad you're--" she catches sight of the slender girl peeking from behind her son and that smile grows warmer if such a thing is possible. "Well, Suichi! Who's this pretty young thing you're hiding? Come here and let me take a look at you, dear!" Shyly the koorime steps out from behind the taller boy and bows respectfully.

"Hello, Mrs. Minamino. I'm Aislin, and it's a great pleasure to meet you."

"Mom, I'd like you to meet my girlfriend," Kurama beams, wrapping a muscular arm around the slender 'girl's' shoulders with a possessive air. "Aislin, as you guessed, this is my mother, Shiori Minamino." Shiori simply smiles at Aislin--who is by this point blushing a brilliant shade of pink--and chuckles.

"It's very nice to meet you, dear. But what about that charming young man you keep bringing home, Suichi?" Kurama's turn to blush, but he's rescued from trying to frame a tactful answer by a new arrival.

"We're trying to figure out if she'll have to share," Hiei says from behind Kurama, who shies a bit but turns his head to look over his shoulder with a grin.

"Sensible Hiei," Aislin approves, "you remembered not to sneak up on me."

The kajihenge rubs the side of his head with a small lopsided smile. "After the last time? Heck, no." Aislin raises an eyebrow at him. _'Heck?'_ The spiky-haired boy tilts his head in the direction of Shiori and the sea-green eyes alight in understanding.

"What did you do to him, Aislin-san?" The human woman inquires in mild curiosity, and Aislin chokes on her laughter while Hiei turns bright red.

"Um, I'd really rather not say. I'm just going to admit she's got one heck of a right hook and leave it at that."

"Uh-huh." Shiori's face is knowing, but she refrains from abusing poor Hiei's pride further and gestures for her son's guests to come into the house proper. But before they get more than a few feet a rambunctious bundle of energy rushes past them, making Aislin squeak and jump closer to Kurama in order to avoid getting knocked over.

"Suiichi!" Shiori scolds, and the bundle resolves into a younger boy with jet-black hair and a cheerful smile. "Apologize to your brother and his friends! You know better to run in the house."

"Sorry," the boy says sheepishly, and Aislin lets her nerves calm before smiling at him.

"It's okay, you just startled me, is all."

"Not the safest idea," Hiei mumbles as the voice of experience. The young boy glances in startlement at the petite female as if unbelieving that this scrap of a pretty girl could do anything to the boy that radiates 'bad-ass' but shrugs and makes a sketchy sort of bow before resuming his activity.

"Bye, Mom! I'm headin' to the arcade with some of my friends! I'll be back by dinner!"

"Take a sweater!" Shiori calls back with the boy giving her a wordless affirmative as he heads out the door. Shiori smiles after the youngster with motherly exasperation and turns back to her son and his guests.

About ten minutes later they are safely ensconced in Kurama's room upstairs, with the door slightly ajar in deference to the red-haired boy's mother's decorum. As soon as the sound of the human woman's footsteps had faded from all three's hearing, Aislin turns to Hiei with her fox ears out and flat. "You _promised_ me, Hiei Jaganshi!" she growls warningly, only to be firmly rebuffed with his reply.

"I promised I wouldn't chase _Yoko_." Despite the lack of the Void, all three can sense the nuances put on the silver fox's name. "I didn't say anything about Kurama or Suichi."

"Fuck. You're right." She drops onto the neatly made bed with little grace and regards the two with no little unhappiness, ears disappearing once again. "What do we do now? I don't need any senses to know you two are linked pretty firmly, as you are to me, Kurama." His imploring look reminds her. "Sorry; Suichi."

"Right now I'm curious about Koenma. You aren't running, and he isn't chasing." Hiei takes his accustomed perch on the open window's sill with one knee drawn up to his chest. "What have you two agreed on?"

Aislin snickers and glances furtively around. Apparently satisfied, she answers him. "The child-king hasn't figured out the loop-hole yet. I agreed to three centuries of sentencing on parole. I never said I'd serve all of it."

Both males just laugh or snort according to their natures, and relax. "So you go to school with me now, as part of your parole, ne?" Kurama questions in an attempt to confirm, and she nods.

"Ne. I still have to process the occasional employee, but he mostly saves me for Spirit Detectives. I am curious as to why your application didn't ring any of my mental bells, Suichi. Hiei's application was sent and approved last year, but not yours."

Kurama shrugs. "Koenma might have been using my human name for it for all I know. Anything is possible."

The two elemental apparitions sigh in agreement, by this point having taken up nearly identical poses without any awareness that they have done so. They look at each other, notice, grin lopsidedly and shrug before turning their combined attention back to Kurama, who looks mildly unsettled. "It's uncanny the way you two do that, I'll have you know."

"That's why we call each other 'mirror'." The two make a face at each other, having spoken in unison unintentionally.

"It's always been like this," Aislin admits, relaxing into a full-body sprawl on the fluffy quilt. "Ever since I can remember, we've had this weird link."

"The Greeks had an interesting definition of soul mate," Hiei adds from the windowsill, about as sprawled as he ever gets, "that was literally about two people sharing halves of the same soul. Too similar for lovers, not different enough to be enemies."

"Perhaps the Jagans have had some influence on that." Hiei stares at Aislin.

"_You_ have a _Jagan_??" Aislin looks embarrassed.

"In my full form I do. I don't have control over it yet. But I'm working on it!" she adds defensively as two startled looks are aimed her way. "It's hard!" Hiei just stares at her in disbelief and she squirms. "Okay, fine. I don't care about having a Jagan, that's why I haven't tried messing with it much. It doesn't affect my abilities, and it doesn't do much more than let me travel to the Void for some R&R. And I've had it for ages without it doing anything else, so why bother now?"

"You and I are going to be having a good long training session before too long," Hiei mildly threatens. "A Jagan is not something to be ignored."

"Bite me, porcupine head."

"That's my job," Kurama counters, and both stare at him like he's crazy before starting to laugh.

"Suichi no baka!" Aislin giggles helplessly, curled on her side with her hands over her head, sprawled in a curve like a cat. Or a particularly lazy fox. When the laughter stops, the three share looks of understanding and sigh as one. "Guess I am gonna hafta share," Aislin mumbles dispiritedly. "So much for that idea." Neither male bother questioning her as to what 'that idea' entailed--knowing her, they already have a pretty good guess.

"Beloved, what is done is done, and cannot be undone." Kurama sighs again and joins her on the bed, gesturing for Hiei to join them, which he does. The three are now comfortably curled around each other, Kurama in the middle with the two elementals on either side. "We'll have to work something out, is all. At least long enough for me to get through college without biting each other's heads off."

"And without stomping on each other's feelings while we're at it," Hiei adds quietly, the others nodding in agreement. Kurama lets out a particularly heavy sigh and rubs a hand over his face.

"I never thought I would be foolish enough to fall in love with two people at once."

"Baka," the two mutter, but there is no heat or anger, only exasperated affection. "What did you just tell us?" Aislin demands, poking his ribs on the right side.

"Hn," Hiei affirms, poking his left. Chuckling, the fox-ningen ruffles both of their hair and gets to his feet, smiling wryly.

"Ganging up is not allowed, so there." He gets an idea and his long hair starts fluffing up with pleasure at the thought, a grin suddenly making Aislin and Hiei wary. "Come on, you two. I know for a fact neither of you have ever had ice cream, and there's a nice little shop a couple blocks away. My treat."

"Sugar?" Aislin asks hopefully, and Hiei groans.

"Kitsune no baka! You of all people know what happens when she eats too much sugar."

"Too late now," Kurama says impishly, "offer's already been made. You interested or not?"

"Bet I can eat more than you can, porcupine head," Aislin dares, bouncing to her feet and practically dancing towards the door.

"You wish!" Hiei counters, leaping to his own feet and half-tackling her so that she doesn't get a head start on him. "Come on, Suichi! Come and reap the fruits of your idea!"

"Oh, dear," Kurama laughs, and follows them out. All of them smile as they stumble their way downstairs and out the front door into the sunlight, secure in the knowledge that whatever the future would bring, they'd face it together, and not alone. Never again would they be alone. And it might take a long time, but they would find a way for all three to be content and satisfied, no matter what. Kurama's emerald eyes gleam with thoughts of the family he might get a chance to have this time as the two shorter apparitions--entangled in a walking wrestling match that seems to involve a lot of pouncing, pushing, pulling, and laughter--turn to look back at him, faces alight with pure, undiluted joy. Aislin's grin gets hopeful at a sudden thought.

"Hey, koishii! Does ice-cream come in chocolate??"

==================================================================================

The End. I hope you enjoyed it, everyone!

Ne: right/yes


	11. Ballad of Winter Rose and Silver Thief

This is the song written by Talayasen the sparrow youkai, titled 'Winter Rose and Silver Thief'. I felt like putting it up.

_  
When the fires of dawning  
Are ages away;  
And the starlight and moonlight  
Have come out to play;  
When the forests and meadows  
Are all deep asleep;  
A lone Winter's Maiden  
Shall lone vigil keep._

_Chorus 1:  
White Maiden keeps watching  
And waiting for him;  
Bright fox will keep fighting  
And do naught but win._

_For the love of a Thief-King  
Who's long from his home,  
And the promise he made her  
When he left to roam:  
'Not Death nor her ruler  
Can keep me from you--  
I'll be back by the dawnlight,  
With prizes no few.'_

_Chorus 2:  
A jewel Thief-king's downfall  
And necklace of gold;  
Hunter ended his charmed life  
And death took a hold._

_But his promise was broken--  
He did not return.  
He was slain in the midnight  
She later did learn.  
Still she waits for his coming  
No matter how long;  
Winter Rose and Silver Thief--  
This is their song._

_Chorus 3:  
For thieves stealing is living  
But comes at a price;  
Their lives can be forfeit  
And gone in a trice. _


End file.
